Govt clueless about health crisis on the ground-Ombudsman

The Botswana Government has been operating out of touch with the realities facing public health facilities across the country.

In its newly released report, the Ombudsman has exposed what it describes as a profound disconnect between government policy-making and the grim realities inside Botswana’s public health facilities revealing that the Ministry of Health was largely unaware of the depth and scale of the crisis unfolding on the ground. According to the Ombudsman’s investigation, there are “significant deficiencies in the Ministry’s awareness of, and effective oversight over, conditions prevailing within public health facilities,” exposing what the report also describes as a “marked disconnection between policy-level governance and operational realities on the ground.”