ONGWEDIVA Medipark is one of the country’s newly established health facilities and the only private hospital in northern Namibia. Despite the fact it only opened its doors in 2006, the health facility has already managed to attain a reputable status, attracting clients and patients from all over the country and neighbouring Angola. New Era Senior Journalist Helvy Shaanika recently interviewed Ongwediva Medipark Managing Director Dr Tshali Iithete, who apart from being a shareholder in the institution also owns a private practice there.
NE: Briefly tell us who Tshali Iithete is?
TI: “I am a young Namibian professional medical doctor. I grew up in northern Namibia but I was exposed to different parts of the world by school. I however returned back to the north to plough back skills and services. I studied at various institutions in South Africa, the United States of America and Finland before I decided to come and plough back the experience. ”
NE: What motivated you to choose the medical field as a career?
TI: “I have always wanted to be in a service field, being raised by two parents who both were teachers who believe in ploughing back – so I chose medicine. As challenging as it is, this is the field that gives me an opportunity to work with people. The other thing is that when we were growing up most people became teachers and some, mostly ladies went for nursing. So taking up a career like medicine was not easy, when we had very few Namibian doctors back then.”
NE: Were you in anyway involved in the establishment of Ongwediva Medipark? What inspired the establishment of an institution like this?
TI: “Yes I am the Managing Director. We started when [private] health care services were not available in this part of the country. At least 60 percent of the Namibian population live in this part of the country but people had to travel to Windhoek for proper medical attention, even for the simplest condition. In fact before there were health facilities in Windhoek people had to go to South Africa.
“Medical care is supposed to be affordable but travelling long distances on its own made medical services unaffordable and it is not supposed to be like that. So we established this hospital with the aim of bringing services to the people and making health care affordable.”
NE: What challenges did you face in the beginning?
TI: “The beginning was very difficult. It was not easy to come to the north and establish an institution like this. We needed to live up to expectations. It was not easy to convince the financiers to finance a non-existing institution and to build a profile to attract experts and bring in the right people. So the beginning was slow, but here we are.”
NE: Apart from being the managing director of the hospital, you also run a private practice, how do you manage that?
TI: “It is not difficult running a practice and a hospital because they are both in the same field. As much as they take up a lot of time, I work with a dedicated team of young Namibians who over the years committed to the success of this institution. Today have managers in all departments, we have a finance manager, we have a pharmaceutical manager, all departments have managers, and my role is just to steer the ship.”
NE: This institution has so many visiting doctors, why is it necessary to import medical practitioners, how about Namibian doctors?
TI: “The reason is obvious, we import doctors because we don’t have Namibians in specific fields so we have to import skills. If you have to count the number of Namibian specialists, you can count them on your fingers and they don’t want to come to the north. For most of them, the thought of coming to work in Ongwediva is farfetched. They would rather stay in the comfort of Windhoek. We therefore have to import skills in at least 20 fields including neurosurgery, orthopaedic surgery, general trauma, paediatrics, anaesthesia and radiology, among others.”
NE: Is it not expensive to import specialists?
TI: ” It is expensive to import skills, but when you want to provide quality service, you have to bear the cost and it is worth it.”
NE: Apart from the experts that you import to your institution what other specialised functions, medical equipment and facilities can be found at Ongwediva Medipark?
TI: “When you bring in a lot of specialised skills you have also to invest in specialised equipment and well as state of art theatre. because specialised skills only work with specialised equipment.”
NE: Any other information that you would like to share with us?
TI: “I only have two items that I would like to address. First, Namibians think that health starts at the hospital, but health should start at home. People should be educated about eating healthy food and healthy living. Our health should be the responsibility of all of us, we should not let it be in the hands of doctors alone.
“Secondly, Namibia a country with a small population with few skills and limited resources. We need to pull resources together and share. When it comes to the health care system, we only have one in this country. That includes private and public. We need to create a private, public partnership in sharing skills and equipment. We don’t have two sectors, we only have one health sector in the country. There is no reason why colleagues from the private sector would not take the time to share skills with the colleagues in the public sector. Services available in the sector should be shared. The world is embracing resources sharing. It reduces burden and cost.”
“Medical care is supposed to be affordable but travelling long distances on its own made medical services unaffordable and it is not supposed to be like that.”