John Muyamba
Nyangana-Nyangana Catholic Hospital through its chief medical officer Dr Erick Sidile says they are grateful to IntraHealth for the infrastructure development, as well as the capacity development programmes, at the hospital.
The hospital is also grateful for the training in anaesthesia of one of its medical officers, as it has brought relief to the hospital especially in maternity case management.
Sidile made the remarks during the U.S Ambassador Thomas Daughton’s visit to the hospital on Thursday last week.
Nyangana Catholic Hospital is a district hospital in Ndiyona Constituency, Kavango East Region, 100km from Rundu.
The hospital is subsidised by the Namibian government through the Ministry of Health and Social Services, but the funds are said to be insufficient to cater for all the hospital’s needs.
According to Sidile, Dr Zabambuta Ngana, who was the recipient of the training in anaesthesia, has been doing a wonderful job since receiving the specialist training.
Before that, emergency maternity cases at the hospital would be referred to Rundu, which is 100km away. The situation has resulted in many deaths of either a mother or the unborn foetus, or sometimes both.
“Imagine if there’s a serious case of foetal distress or a serious case of postpartum bleeding, and you take this patient and put her in an ambulance and in most cases by the time they get to Rundu things have gone wrong,” Sidile said.
“If the woman is seriously bleeding you run the risk of actually losing that mother so with that trained anaesthetic, when there is an emergency, we immediately take that pregnant woman to theatre, operate and have the delivery of a healthy baby,” Sidile continued.
“I got the training in Rundu hospital and this was the first anaestasia training to be done in the RH. The training was held during the months of October, November and December last year by a specialist doctor Theresia Shivera, from Central and Katutura hospitals in Windhoek,” Ngana said.