Staff Reporter
VARIOUS communities residing in and around Gobabis have come together to form a chain of strength in the fight against the devastation of COVID-19.
In normal times, the residents of Gobabis like many other people from smaller towns in Namibia rely on the hospitals in Windhoek for help when they need serious medical attention.
Local church leaders, doctors, farmers, business personalities, labourers, health workers, police officers and everyone else that was able to help or lend a hand have stepped forward to assist those who fall sick because of a lack of adequate medical facilities and the fact that all the hospitals in Windhoek are filled beyond capacity with COVID-19 patients.
When the third wave of the pandemic struck Gobabis in May, the town and all the structures were wholly unprepared for the carnage that would follow but as soon as the tsunami hit, people came together and went over to action.
When the private clinic and the state hospital were overrun, members of one church created a temporary oxygenation ward in the pastor’s house.
Soon afterward the rest of the community started making contributions towards providing food, buying oxygen generators and CPAP machines to assist sick patients.
Many people with or without medical training volunteered as nurses, caretakers, and cleaners.
The local medical doctors gave the volunteers a crash course in applying the correct machinery and treatment methods while they took care of seriously sick people.
After the crash course, the volunteers did an exemplary job in assisting the sick and keeping the doctors informed of the condition of the patients in the temporary clinic.
The structure along which all COVID-19 patients are managed in Gobabis was changed and the beds in the formal health facilities both public and private are kept for patients that become severely sick in order for doctors to keep a constant eye on them.
Peet Steyn, the pastor in the middle of the COVID-9 storm said the community of the town has been changed forever.
“The constant trauma and death has brought us all together and our community will never be the same again,” he said.
