Isolation Centres gobble over P200 million
The government has spent over P200million in support of both quarantine and isolation facilities, following the introduction of mandatory quarantine for all arrivals in the country when the COVID- 19 pandemic broke out last year.
Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr. Edwin Dikoloti said when presenting a paper titled, ‘ Evolution of the Quarantine and Isolation approach adopted in the midst of the COVID- 19 pandemic: The untold Botswana story,’ that quarantining was initially to take place in public places like educational institutions, where multitudes of Batswana and residents arriving from other countries would be accommodated.
However, a court case against quarantine in the said places was lodged by some decrying the conditions in those facilities. The court ruled in the litigants’ favour and this resulted in government quarantining people in private facilities.
“Not only did this become exceedingly costly, but it also became impossible to quarantine and isolate all these multitudes of people with all expenses paid for by the state,” Dr. Dikoloti said.
He added that although Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital was transformed into a COVID- 19 treatment centre, this still did not help to stabilise the situation.
Dikoloti said when Covid broke out in early 2020, the government set out a number of priorities and objectives to protect lives and contain the pandemic, and enable livelihoods to thrive, and enable economic development.
He said while the initial strategy of quarantining and isolating people in private facilities was costly, it was necessary to do so at the time, especially in trying to curb the spread of the virus.
“It also allowed us to study and monitor the disease at close range so that we grow our knowledge about it”.
Dikoloti said it has become clear that the response to COVID- 19 has become protracted and would require a change in approach and re- engineering of processes to build system resilience, resilience not just for now but also to deal with future pandemics.
It also allowed us to study and monitor the disease at close range so that we grow our knowledge about it
He said this was also motivated by trends elsewhere across the world, including growth in scientific knowledge about COVID- 19.
Therefore the Ministry decided to isolate non- critical COVID- 19 patients at their homes and quarantine those forming part of contact tracing at their homes.
As of 10 August 2021, a total of 18 793 people were on home isolation while 28 013 were on home quarantine. The total national permanent bed occupancy for facility- based isolation on 10 August 2021 was at five percent.
This signifies a significant reduction in using facility- based care for isolation which on 6th July 2021 was at 60 percent. The government also created bed space at public facilities for those who may not be very critical but were still unable to be quarantined or isolated at home.
To date, a total of 932- bed space capacity within existing public facilities has been created across the country, the Minister said.