Limpho Sello
THE Koro-Koro community has appealed to government for the construction of more clinics as well a wider range of health services.
The community is currently heavily dependent on just one clinic — St. Joseph clinic — which caters for 24 villages. However, the clinic has a limited range of services as it does not provide midwifery services due to lack of space and electricity. It is forced to refer patients to other clinics and hospitals, further inconveniencing the community in the process.
It was in view of these challenges that the community made their plea this week during an assessment tour of the area by the Minister of Health Dr Molotsi Monyamane.
They said the lack of services was costly and time-consuming for the patients as they had to use more cash to travel to far away clinics or hospitals to access health care.
Mohlakeng Community Councilor Maeketsang Molotsi told the Lesotho Times her community had been forced to rely on a monthly outreach programme where nurses came to the village once a month to provide health services.
“People only access an outreach health programme once a month where they are told that if two or three members of the family are sick only one of them will get services while the others go unattended,” Ms Molotsi said.
“Besides this programme they have the option to go to St. Joseph clinic in Koro-Koro, Mofoka clinic or Ha-Paki at Mazenod but these are very far and some decide not to go due to financial reasons and they end up losing their lives at home.”
Ms Molotsi said there was congestion at the outreach programme at Ha-Tlebelre which forced many patients to leave the place without receiving medical attention.
She said that had to be urgently addressed as people continued to suffer “hence our appeal to Ntate Monyamane to come and observe the situation so that he and his team can be able to decide how they can help this community”.
For his part, Dr Monyamane said it was important to visit and assess the progress in the decentralisation of the provision of health services.
He said they had noted the challenge of inadequate health centres as well as medical staff.
“In as much as the situation is not pleasant, I was happy to see the local government in the villages working together to address people’s needs. To see churches, chief, councilors and Members of Parliament coordinate in the interest of the public is something truly wonderful,” Dr Monyamane said.
“Now that we have seen the challenges we have to work together until there is progress. We now need to go back to the drawing board to try and address the issues.”
