The Minister of Health, Mr. Selibe Mochoboroane says he is working with his counterpart from the Ministry of Education and Training to ensure that National Health Training Centre (NHTC) is transferred from Health to Education.

When presenting his Ministry’s budget in the National Assembly on Wednesday, Mr. Mochoboroane said this will help for the smooth running
of this institution as well as for it to be autonomous.

Furthermore, he said his Ministry is prioritising undertaking four projects such as constructing a cancer centre, improving Primary Health Care and ensuring that Queen ‘Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) falls under the government.

He also hinted that the Ministry is planning to start a medical school in the country in order to produce its own doctors to improve the health system which he said has collapsed.

Mr Mochoboroane said when the Government of Lesotho took over QMMH in
2021, it found that the hospital’s medical equipment was outdated and needed to be replaced as well as that there were not enough doctors hence affected the services.

He, therefore, promised that with the budget allocation he was requesting, he would address some of the challenges facing the health system like getting more medical doctors, building the cancer centre and improving the health system.

Elaborating on building the cancer centre, he said the country is losing millions of Maloti with cancer patients being treated in South Africa and India.

He believed that it was high time the country is able to treat its patients to reduce the money being eroded to other countries, citing that to treat a cancer patient the Government of Lesotho is paying M220,000.

The Minister stated that attempts are already in place for the construction of the Cancer Centre where pillars and access roads have already been erected and that what is left is only for the real construction to begin.

He highlighted that there is already cancer testing equipment in all the Hospitals in the country as well as in clinics, hence urged Basotho to go for testing in a bid to detect cancer at an early stage to treat it.

‘’Statistics have shown that cervical cancer among women is predominant as well as breast cancer and prostate cancer among those aged 40 and above’’ he lamented.

The Minister said his ministry will be working to prevent illnesses more than treatment, citing that campaigns are already underway to immunise girls aged nine years to 13 in the country.

Leader of Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), Mr. Mothetjoa Metsing
pleaded with the Health Minister to tread carefully about medical school in order to get it right from the beginning to avoid making mistakes.

He said the medical school should be managed well in order to produce the desired results.

Speaking about the Cancer Centre, Mr Metsing said many cancer patients are expected to pay bills for themselves, saying for ordinary Basotho that is expensive.

He, therefore, appealed to the Minister to rather look out for ways in which a subsidy for cancer patients could be made to avoid the unnecessary loss of precious lives.

In 2016,  the first group of Basotho started medical school training but was forced to be transferred to Zambia due to unforeseeable circumstances.

The Ministry of Health has been allocated M2,246,400,267 for this financial year which has doubled the previous year’s allocation.

Source: LENA 22/03/2023