Ngami District Health Management Team got a shot in the arm recently with a donation of ICT gadgets valued at over P50 000 from Stanbic Bank Botswana to support their new community Oriented Primary Care Project (COPC).
The gadgets which comprises of 8 tablets, a laptop and a printer were officially handed over to the DHMT in Maun on Tuesday.
The project is a collaboration between Ngami DHMT, University of Botswana and Botswana-UPENN uses principles of public health, preventive medicine and primary care to have positive health benefits in communities.
Botswana -UPENN partnership is a collaboration between the government of Botswana, the University of Botswana, and the University of Pennsylvania working to improve health and healthcare capacity in Botswana, and promote and conduct innovative research critical to better understanding the global nature of the HIV epidemic.
Speaking at the handover ceremony, Ngami DHMT Coordinator Dr Sandra Maripe explained that the goal for the project, to first start in Matsaudi and Phuduhudu villages is to strengthen the primary health care services within communities.
“Our objectives are to identify, quantify and monitor health priorities in those communities,” she stressed.
Maripe explained that the decision to start the project in Phuduhudu and Matsaudi before extending it to other villages was based on the fact that the villages are small and manageable. She noted that they met with health practitioners from the health posts and the people living in those areas to identify both common illnesses and other public health challenges they face in their communities.
Maripe explained that these will then be added to a data capturing tool, adding that the donated gadgets will be useful in capturing patients’ data for it to accessible to other health practitioners on duty at any particular moment.
“So far we have completed the data collection process and we are yet to move to data analysis then we can now categorize information given so that we can prioritize these issues in terms of health and community challenges,” Maripe said.
Stanbic Bank Relationship Manager Oreeditse Babili said that they have set out to support and give back to local communities in every possible way, as it is the bank’s vision to transform dreams into reality and to deliver full and meaningful growth for the communities. She added that the donation is their contribution in support of the COPC initiative, adding that it is also part of the bank’s 30th anniversary commemoration.
“As the goal of the project is to sustainably improve the health care of the community, we are therefore keen on seeing the project succeeding and being implemented across the whole country,” Babili said.
