ONGWEDIVA – For many years the Engela State Hospital – located at the Namibian/Angolan border town of Helao Nafidi – has served as the referral hospital for patients from Ohangwena and Omusati regions.
Patients accompanied by family members and relatives travel hundreds of kilometres to the hospital for medical care and as a result a number of patients including expecting mothers camp in front of the hospital, waiting to be attended to by a doctor.
“One has to be close to the hospital because if you go into labour at night, there is no car to bring you to the hospital and since you don’t know anybody in Engela, staying here is the best solution,” said one mother.
Some of the patients are not too sick so that they don’t have to be admitted but need to stay close to the health facility anyhow for a follow-up examination at a later stage, while some expecting mothers are forced to join the group of patients waiting to see a doctor and live under the nearby trees.
This is because the facility for expecting mothers built by government a few years ago next to the hospital is full to capacity and can no longer take in more people.
“I came here last Friday, but when I went to the facility for expectant mothers, it was full. Some women sleep on the floor, there is just no space. That is why I decided to join others here [under a tree],” said nine-months pregnant Olivia Oiva from Onamukalo village in Ohangwena Region.
Oiva said her village is far from roads or hospital facilities, and it is thus a norm for pregnant women in her community to go and camp near the hospital as soon as they are almost due to give birth.
Eunice Haikali from Okambebe village also in Ohangwena Region said the open space where she and a number of women camp gets cold especially at night but they wear warm clothes and light a fire in the evenings to ease the wrath of the harsh weather.
Haikali said she and other patients, who are mostly women, bring their food such as mahangu flour from the village to cook.
“It is just fine here. We spent our days making baskets and interacting. The facility is too full. It only has 60 beds and we are many, so we are happy here,” said Eufemia Simon from Ongenga village who is expecting her second baby.
Because of quality medical care believed to be administered by Namibian hospitals thousands of patients including expecting mothers from the neighbouring Angola also flock to Engela.
The 30-year-old Penehafo Simon from Onamakunde village in Angola is expecting her sixth child. Simon has always opted for antenatal care at Engela State Hospital and delivered all her children there, because unlike in her country Engela hospital, the only Namibian medical facility she knows, offers quality medical services including medical examinations and general care for pregnant mothers, according to her.
“Medical examinations for expecting mothers in Angola is only about HIV and that’s it. Here in Namibia you are tested for other sexually transmitted infections, your blood pleasure is properly checked, your urine is checked. Medical care is just good here. That is why there is no way I would opt to deliver my baby in Angola,” said Simon.
Magdalena Miguel also from Angola in the Cuvelai Province said she and her elderly mother have spent the last three weeks camping near the hospital.
Miguel who seems to be in her 50s or 60s said her mother was discharged three weeks ago from the hospital after an eye operation. According to Miguel, her mother needs to go back to the doctor in a few days time, and since it is costly to travel back to Angola and then come back to Namibia, the mother and daughter have opted to join other dwellers under a tree.
The women spend their afternoon interacting and receiving visitors every now and then while at the same time craft traditional baskets and keep an eye on their relish that consists of either meat or horse-mackerel fish that they keep in the sun to dry.
At sunset they make a fire to cook the evening meal before each one disappears into the tent to sleep and await the next day. And when one is discharged, they pack up their tent and leave making way for a new tenant – an expecting mother, a family member who has a relative hospitalised or a recently discharged patient who has to wait for a follow-up examination scheduled in the next few days or weeks.
“We have nothing to complain about here, if we get sick, we live right next to the hospital, and we just go into the hospital,” said Eufemia Simon.