MASERU - The health industry is without doubt overwhelmed by problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially small hospitals based in rural and low-population density areas, the Seboche Mission Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Emmanuel Nyondo has shown.

He said despite the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipment that the hospital received a week ago from local insurers - Metropolitan Lesotho, the facility still has a mountain to climb to overcome its numerous challenges.

“For instance, for the new equipment to operate, we need extra human resource and extra training to use the new machines,” Dr. Nyondo said. Apart from that, he showed that the hospital is situated in a mountainous area, where there is a poor road network.

“So when our patients are in critical conditions and urgently need to be transported from the hospital to our tertiary facility, it becomes difficult to get them there on time and that normally worsens their conditions,” he said.

Dr. Nyondo noted that the lack of adequate infrastructure is another major challenge they face, as COVID-19 patients need to be separated from other patients for proper management of the disease.

“We need to obtain space to build an isolation room to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to un-infected patients. Challenges like these require hospitals to re-think the processes they use to deliver care and treatment to their patients,” he also showed.