Ministry weighs private theatres to cut backlog

The Ministry of Health and Social Services is reviewing theatre capacity at Windhoek Central Hospital before deciding how to proceed with a proposal to use private hospital theatres to help reduce the state surgical waiting list. The proposal, first reported in May, would allow state patients to be operated on at private hospitals during evenings, weekends and public holidays. However, the ministry has confirmed that the proposal has not been finalised, saying it first needs to assess how efficiently existing state theatre capacity is being used. Ministry spokesperson Walters Kamaya says the ministry had engaged with the proposal from private hospitals and welcomed the use of private theatre space to help reduce the number of state patients waiting for surgery.

“The ministry welcomes the proposal from the private sector for the ministry to use private theatre time and space, to help with reducing the waiting list of state patients for theatre,” Kamaya says. He says the ministry had conducted a theatre-time audit at Windhoek Central Hospital to assess the national referral hospital’s theatre use and identify gaps in the use of theatre time. Windhoek Central Hospital has also been tasked with conducting a comprehensive review of its theatre processes, with the aim of improving operational efficiency and increasing the number of patients operated on each day. As part of efforts to increase theatre capacity, the hospital has added five hours of theatre time for urology. The additional urology theatre time ran from 10 August until 12 October. Kamaya says urology is among the surgical disciplines with a significant theatre waiting list. The ministry’s response comes as private specialists have separately raised concerns about the availability of specialist doctors after…