Kweneng Region had by March 27th recorded 18 Coronavirus suspects, 13 from Kweneng East, one from Kweneng West and four from Thamaga site.
Four of them have already been tested and results for three came out negative while one is still pending.
When briefing the media at Scottish Livingstone Hospital (SLH) last Friday, Molepolole Coordinator for Kweneng Regional Health Management Team, Chipo Petlo, said they were making arrangements to contain any influx of Covid-19 patients and prepare for a possible spill-over from Gaborone health facilities.
She said they are currently working on logistics at Molepolole Institute of Health Sciences (IHS) and Molepolole College of Education (MCE) while two lodge owners have submitted their names for their facilities to be used for quarantine.
Kweneng Regional Public Health Specialist, Dr Terrence Mukuhwa, noted that they have identified quarantine facilities including Scottish Livingstone Hospital TB ward isolation facility which has a total of 13 beds.
He said the community has the right of choice on the isolation facility and that they have several teams that have been identified and anticipated to coordinate the prevention and control with laboratories capacitated to handle the specimen.
“Regardless of how prepared the health department is, we can only successfully prevent cases if everyone in the community from the youngest to the oldest come together as a community for the successful control of this pandemic,” added Mukuhwa.
In an effort to avoid crowded places, SLH have reduced the visiting hours of patients to three times a day each taking 30 minutes and only two visitors per patient allowed during visiting time.
Visiting hours start from 7 am to 7:30 am, followed by 1pm to 1:30 pm and the 7pm to 7:30pm.
Acting Hospital Superintendent, Dr Dayana Palai, said the training was ongoing for both clinical and non clinical staff and that they have already trained about 309 personnel in the region.“We have different departments that we are aware are crowded, like the Eye Clinic which is in the Southern Region centre. We have extra chairs to organise the queue. We encourage the community to take proper hygiene precautions by washing hands and sanitising, not wearing gloves as they end up overstaying with them for hours,” she added. Palai also encouraged the community to stay home and avoiding going to the shopping malls unnecessarily.
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