As the country continues to grapple with shortages of medical supplies in public healthcare facilities, some Batswana have rolled up their sleeves to help their countrymen While their actions may come across as a tiny drop in the vast and endless ocean, they are content that they are able to touch one life at a time; their intervention often preventing a further deterioration of health and in the worst-case scenario, a loss of life. Motherhood Botswana Organisation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) registered in 2018 with a mandate to improve the psychological wellbeing and social welfare status of women, has seen the ongoing drugs shortage challenges in the public healthcare system, force it to widen its range of services. Initially, the NGO focused on offering free counseling services and implementing an anti-Gender-Based Violence (GBV) programme in addition to its social empowerment initiative through which it helps deserving women to start businesses to support their families.
Still in the pursuit to protect the dignity of women, the organisation would also help pregnant less-privileged women with essentials necessary for themselves and their newborns whenever circumstances called for its intervention. However, since November last year, Motherhood Botswana founder, Ms Lindiwe Nkomo started to note a new phenomenon of women pleading to be assisted to purchase medicines and other medical commodities. Despite being alive to months-long reports of drug shortages in public health facilities, Ms Nkomo was at first reluctant to intervene given the sensitivity of issues of health.
Nonetheless, when the requests quickly added up, she knew that a matter of life and death was knocking at Motherhood Botswana’s door and that the NGO being a champion of issues of the welfare of women, it would be amiss for it to play deaf to the growing pleas for help. “The shortage of vital health products has significantly increased the burden on our organisation. And even though we do not have support in the form of sponsors, we cannot sit back and watch another woman suffer,” she said.
Read Full Article on Daily News Botswana
[paywall]
To discharge this added responsibility, Motherhood Botswana relies on monetary contributions from members of its Facebook page, who spring into action whenever a call for contributions is made, raising the necessary amounts to purchase the required medications. “The numbers (of those seeking help) are really high. We get on average 15 to 20 requests per day and mostly it’s cases of cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and kidney diseases,” Ms Nkomo explained, saying the high volume of requests pointed to the gravity of the situation. Ms Nkomo wished government could put into place several interventions including going into effective partnerships with civil society organisations so that they could help carry the burden of support whenever the nation came face-to-face with any sort of crisis.
[/paywall]
