Later on as time passed, some additions and changes were made. The hospital was renovated recently in 2003 with the help from the Luxumberg Government, Namibian Government and the Catholic Church in Namibia. This is a 120 bed hospital with 5 Doctors, 16 Registered nurses, 31 Enrolled nurses, and some support staff and paramedical staff which gives us a total of staff members for the District health provision. We have 8 Clinics, 52 Outreach points functioning under this District Hospital. It serves a population of 39,000 in an area of 15,000 square kilometers. Also there is a New Start Centre for Voluntary Counseling and Testing and also to treat the eligible clients with HAART. This program is financed by USAIDS for 5 years. We have approximately 200 patients on HAART and they are doing rather well. The HIV incidence in the District is 19.5% which is slightly less in 2004 compared to the previous sentinel survey result in 2002. We have almost 120 to 150 out-patients per day and an average of 103 in-patients every day. The hospital has several different departments such as Adult Male ward, Adult Female ward, Pediatric ward, Maternity ward, TB ward, Casualty, Operation, Operating Theatre, Laboratory, Radiology, Pharmacy, Laundry, Maintenance, Kitchen, and Store departments. This is a rural area and very under developed and it is difficult to get staff to come and work here. So we mainly depend on nearby foreign nationals for specialized areas like Medical Doctors and Registered nurses. The main problem is that we are not able to give them a fair accommodation facility. The present facility where they are staying is a very old boys hostel converted to some rooms. Although we do not give any accommodation for the local staff and lower worker categories, we already have 19 staff (including doctors) accommodated with bare single rooms. Our staff turn over is high and one of the reasons is very poor accommodation or no accommodation at all for some category of staff like Social Worker, Pharmacist etc. If you would like to help, we need the following: 1. A few living facilities for our staff, so that they can serve our patients in a better and satisfied atmosphere. 2. An isolation ward for the life threatening communicable diseases like Cholera, Hemorrhagic Fever, etc.; as we do not have even a room to isolate these patients. 3. A conference room for staff and patients.
