Broken equipment beset Engela dental clinic

BY MARX ITAMALO

PATIENTS seeking dental care at the Engela district hospital are being referred to other hospitals in other regions due to broken equipment at the clinic. The equipment has been broken for over a month, Confidente has learnt.

This publication was alerted to the quandary this week by patients who have been going to the clinic in the past week to seek dental treatment.

They say they could not be assisted as some of the equipment is broken.

They claim they were referred to the Eenhana, Onandjokwe and Oshakati hospitals respectively.

“As I speak to you now I am on my way back home from Engela.

We were not assisted because apparently the equipment is broken. They told us to go to Oshakati, Eenhana or Onandjoke hospitals,” Ndamonomhata Hanguwo from Onengali village told Confidente on Monday. According to her, assistants at the clinic informed her, the equipment is broken and they do not know when it will be fixed.

She went to the clinic to have her sore tooth extracted.

Hanghuwo said the nearest hospital to her is the Eenhana hospital and that the trip there will hit her purse hard as she will fork out in the region of N$ 300 to go there and back including food. “It’s very expensive to go to Eenhana. But I have no choice because I am sick,” she stressed.

Another patient Timoteus Hamulungu allegedly went to the same dental clinic last Friday. He described the situation as ‘stressful and hopeless’. “I have been coming to this clinic the whole of last week hoping the clinic will start operating but to my disappointment it is still not working. I think I will just go to Oshakati hospital,” said Hamulungu, a resident of Ongenga village in Ohangwena. His estimations indicate he will part with at least N$ 250 in transport fare going to seek medical attention at the Oshakati intermediate hospital in Oshana region.

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