Kutlo Motseta
6th May 2025
The Ministry of Health launched the long anticipated “National Health Insurance Stake Holders Engagement Launch,” at Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital Tuesday.
The government has long expressed a desire to improve the national medical healthcare system with a focus on universal access and affordable healthcare public services.
“No one should be denied access to healthcare because they cannot afford it … at the core of healthcare is that healthcare is not a privilege but a right … no family should be left vulnerable to financial costs (healthcare),” said Dr Stephen Modise, Minister of Health.
The government intends to ensure the participation of all stakeholders in the proposed healthcare system reform.
“Stronger collaboration with private sector and communities is at the core of healthcare …we will engage with parliament so that they can communicate with their constituencies … We will take advantage of all platforms to make sure that we reach … the traditional doctors, pharmacists, private practitioners,” said Modise.
The government has observed that there are a number of challenges with healthcare currently like life expectancy, which stand at 67 years, shortage of health care worker, medicine shortages and the general populations heavy reliance on public health care and administrative efficiency.
“We had communicable diseases [that] were more prevalent in the country. Now we have deaths from strokes, diabetes (non-communicable diseases) … government tries to ensure that there are hospitals within 8 km radius of where they (communities) are staying,” said Dr Oratile Mfokeng-Selei, Director of Health Services.
Botswana spends 50% of its national budget on healthcare, but wants to improve its financial administrative efficiency.
“We have always had good money for healthcare system … [but] is not comparable with other countries. They have better healthcare outcomes, we have more money but our healthcare outcomes do not match. How do we match these two and get value for our money,” said Dr Mfokeng-Selei.
‘The private sector’ believes that it can contribute to administrative efficiency and still grow its role in national healthcare.
“15% of what we spend on health care goes down the drain … We believe that the private sector is going to improve administration of financial assets,” said Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of BOMAID, Moraki Mokgosani.
“They have to find way to offer complementary services to what government offers,” Mokgosani added.
CEO of Sidilega Hospital Dr Suresh Kumar Menon suggested a benchmarking trip to the Seychelles insisting that it had developed country’s capacity to build progressive medical infrastructure and is an exemple of the advantages of public-private partnerships.
Dr Memon revealed that after introducing healthcare reforms, the Prime Minster of Seychelles James Machem, invited the Botswana government to witness the establishment of medical laboratories.
The National Health Insurance office will use digitalization to achieve its objectives, which will be one of the means by which the government will reach out to stakeholders to contribute to the reform.
“Submissions will be received in a multi modal fashion, email, physical [delivery] … and we will engage with the diaspora (students and Batswana outside the country),” said Dr Memon.
Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Professor Oatlhokwa Nkomazana urged all Batswana to get involved in the process.
“We are at the brink of a healthcare reform. We can only own it if we criticise it … but let it be constructive … so that years from now we can look back and say we built something that we are proud of,” Nkomazana added.
