DIKOLOTI: Part of the cure or part disease?

With Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. Edwin Dikoloti, chaos and confusion never stop. But this time, the lights have gone out and he cannot be saved.

The tides that he tried to swim against have brought him down upon his knees. The link between Dikoloti and failure, is not a discovery, so is the link between health and public security.

In a normal functioning, ethical and service- oriented setup, we could be talking about Dikoloti in past tense. We could be saying, ‘ was.. was.’ But here we are. And there he is. Nothing has changed.

Dispensary shelves are empty; doctors and nurses have nothing to give the sick and the dying. It is just a tragedy of a sight. And the man who appointed Dikoloti to the task, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, is looking the other way. He has not bothered to call his Minister to account, and neither have we.

With what is currently obtaining in public health services, there is little doubt that Dikoloti’s incompetence has mutated beyond a national health crisis. It is now a national security concern. Health systems, are inherently a nation’s first line of defence. As if his mishandling of procurement of Covid- 19 vaccines was not tragic enough, the unfolding scenario, is of genocidal proportions. As the political and technical head ( by virtue of his qualifications) of the Ministry, Dikoloti has shown beyond doubt that the task he has been given, is way beyond his competence.

The resultant, is incompetence that borders on recklessness. In fact, by allowing him to continue to serve in that critical Ministry, at this critical juncture, Masisi is condemning us to death. I wonder where could the Ministry be if it were not for Dr. Christopher Nyanga and his robust public relations initiatives. I am of the view that, if Dikoloti is really capable of anything, it is yet to be discovered. How then does one fail so terribly in his field of study, it is just absurd. I think he is tempting us to start asking ‘ stupid’ questions. I am of the view that fostering resilience of our fragile health systems is just a natural disposition for Minister of Health. This is a necessary capability to enable Botswana to prevent and respond to acute threats that could endanger people’s health. Health systems by default comprise all the resources, organisations and institutions that are devoted to producing interdependent actions aimed principally at improving, maintaining or restoring health.

The COVID- 19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated a crucial relationship between health system capacities and effective health security response. We saw that in our low- income settings, health system deficiencies hampered effective response.

These included a lack of emergency planning and leadership, poor health communication combined with limited population- wide health literacy, equipment shortages, disruptions to medical supply chains, and incapacities to handle even limited increases in caseload frequency. Other deficiencies included poor information on health systems capacities, and the tenuous assimilation of private sector providers within national systems, this having led to often chaotic and ad hoc engagement with governments in national pandemic responses. As such, what the COVID- 19 pandemic has underscored is that there can be no genuine and resilient health security without strong health systems characterised by essential capacities and resources present at all levels.