Lesotho’s critical care patients will soon avoid having to go to South Africa for treatment. The nation’s first public hospital intensive care units are about to debut.
An eight-bed critical care facility with a ventilator and piped oxygen will be available at Mafeteng Hospital in southwest Lesotho and can accommodate a separate wing for COVID-19 patients.
Additionally present is an oxygen production facility. The facility and oxygen supply are designed to reduce the price of oxygen by up to 50%.
The doctors and nurses who will run the new unit, which was supported by the World Bank, have been receiving training from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Training in admission criteria, oxygen therapy, high flow therapy, invasive mechanical ventilation, non-invasive mechanical ventilation, medicines management, and COVID-19 critical and severe case management has been provided to five Ministry of Health employees—two doctors and three nurses.
As the intensive care unit project grows, they will become WHO-certified trainers themselves.
Dr. Raul Gonzalez Rodriguez, a trainer from the WHO Regional Office for Africa’s Case Management team, described the trainings as theoretical and practical and utilizing resources already present at the hospital.
Dr. Senate Mathaha, the medical officer of Mafeteng Hospital, claimed that the new unit would reduce the amount of care needed for COVID-19 as well as complications from trauma, diabetes, obstetric difficulties, and HIV.
She listed a number of specialized abilities, including central line insertion, intubation, and operating equipment like infusion pumps and ventilators, as well as dedication and precise attention to detail, that are necessary for taking care of ICU patients.
We will hopefully be able to provide essential patient care after all of the ICU demands have been satisfied and staff training has continued, she added.
Nurse and midwife Sello Ramakanate emphasized the enhancements a new critical care unit will provide for the treatment of traumatic brain injuries, which are widespread in the region, at Berea Hospital in the country’s north.
“The frequency of traumatic brain injuries is significant due to the mountainous terrain and the employment of donkeys and horses as forms of transportation.
Given the lack of access to medical facilities, maternal and child-related situations are more common than they should be, and some of them result in fatalities because obstetric patients lack the necessary critical care capabilities.
In Lesotho, violence and alcohol abuse are also prevalent, especially in places with insufficient emergency treatment and inadequate facilities for intensive care.
Patients frequently experience life-threatening blood loss, brain traumas, and other conditions, and some of them pass away because there is no critical care unit available.
Lesotho will soon get more ICU beds.
More ICU beds are required, as Lesotho frequently relied on South Africa for care, according to Dr. Francis Mupeta, a COVID-19 case management consultant for WHO in Lesotho.
Patients in critical condition would be flown to South Africa. I believe that the arrival of COVID-19 and the lockdowns that occurred when South Africa was overrun by really ill patients exposed flaws in Lesotho’s healthcare system.
To ensure that essential care is given attention, this ICU project is a step in the right way, he said.
According to Dr. Mupeta, the Lesotho government started addressing the concerns of enhancing the ability to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients and lowering COVID-19-related mortality when it started working on the ICU project.
Only 10 beds at private facilities were found in a national review, which also looked at the capacity of ICUs and was prohibitively expensive for the majority of the population.
The project plans to add five to ten intensive care unit beds annually, bringing the total number of beds in the country’s hospitals to 36.
More skill development will be required for the road ahead, according to Dr. Pheello Ishmael Mobe, a general practitioner at Berea Hospital and a trainee in this program.
“The more training we get, the better we will become at critical care. Through the experience of this training, when the ICU opens, we will be able to do mechanical ventilation.
I hope with time our skills will get better to care for critical patients. Ultimately, Lesotho will benefit when the country is able to train more of its own specialists,” he said.
The treatment gap for the severe forms of the various diseases has been brought to light, according to Dr. Richard Banda, WHO Representative in Lesotho, through COVID-19.
“ICUs are not only about COVID-19. ICU is about severity of the illness. All illnesses can develop into severe forms, and a universal health system should account for this. We will continue to work with our partners to close those gaps for a more equitable health system,” he said.