Fixing a serious water crisis

Thaba-Tseka – Nestled in the stunning valleys of Thaba-Tseka district is Methalaneng Clinic which serves over 8 500 people from the Methalaneng community and beyond.

For years, the clinic was a source of pride for the people of Methalaneng community. It was a place of comfort where their sick went for health care, a place where expectant mothers safely delivered their babies.

But things turned sour four years ago when the clinic’s water supply system broke down.

Litlhare Nkhati, a registered nurse and midwife, recalls how the centre battled to cope with the water crisis.

“In the maternal ward, we would struggle to wash our instruments. We would sometimes collect water from outside the clinic and keep it in the ward for deliveries,” says Nkhati who has been the

Centre’s maternal mortality reduction programme coordinator since 2019.

The crisis also affected the staff who also had to spend hours collecting water for their homes, instead of helping patients.

For close to 600 people of the Methalaneng community who shared the same water source with the clinic, the breakdown of the water supply system to the clinic was a double blow.

In addition to visiting a clinic that didn’t have water, the community members had to also contend with water shortages in their own homes. Worse still, it happened during a time when Lesotho was experiencing extreme drought.

It became common for community members, especially women and girls, to spend many hours queuing at the only available stand pipe in the community.

Nkhati says the situation worsened further, when the water tank that fed the lone tap started leaking. The community found it difficult to practise basic hygiene due to inadequate water.

Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, when water was so much needed for the required hand hygiene, the community members could not do much, as there was no sufficient water.

As the crisis bit, the villagers began working together to deliver water to the clinic in tins.

’Maphohleli Mohlalisi, 46, was part of the village’s water committee that coordinated efforts to deliver water to the clinic.

“It would get difficult for pregnant women in the maternity ward. As the community, we would get buckets of water and help the clinic with water whenever needed,” Mohlalisi says.

“Unfortunately, we ended up getting tired because of the long trips to the clinic with the buckets of water.”

In the midst of all this, the Methalaneng clinic and community received support from UNICEF which worked with the Government’s Department of Rural Water Supply, with financial support from the UK Government’s FCDO to rehabilitate the water system.

Bernard Keraita, UNICEF’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project coordinator, says when Lesotho was recovering from the 2019 drought emergency, the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in Lesotho in 2020.

It became even more urgent to fix the water supply systems in rural areas in Lesotho, especially those serving health care facilities and schools, and Methalaneng, was on top of our list.

This is part of UNICEF’s continued support to the Government of Lesotho to increase access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene services in communities, households, schools and health care facilities.

He says, for this particular project in Methalaneng, a total of 620 000 Maloti was used.

Thetsinyana Mahooana, a senior officer at Rural Water Supply in Thaba-Tseka, says the project involved the construction of four spring catchments, four 500 litres silt boxes, a 500-litre pressure break tank, valve chambers and storage tanks.

It also included the construction of standpipes, donga grossing, gabion structures, a stone wall as well as an excavation trench and backfilling the trench. Water minders were also trained to maintain the system.

Seven taps were installed, two in the clinic and five in the community.

Mahooana, who supervised the construction, says UNICEF’s intervention has gone a long way towards helping the government to achieve its goal of delivering clean water to rural communities.

“UNICEF has helped because these people were really in need of this water,” Mahooana says.

Tséle Tlali, the village chief, says the water project has improved the quality of life in the community.

Chief Tlali says all the people in the village now have access to clean water.

He says the project came when the people were desperate for water because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nkhati, the nurse, says the rehabilitation of the water system has made their work at the clinic easier.

“We all know that Covid-19 made it extremely important for people to frequently wash their hands and practise good hygiene. The water supply has helped us implement the infection prevention measures,” Nkhati says.

“In the maternal ward, we can now clean our equipment and beds, therefore there is a decrease in the chances for infection.”

Mohlalisi says villagers are thankful to UNICEF, the Rural Water Supply and the UK Government’s FCDO that made the project possible.

“Even the people who recently built houses have access to tap water.”

Keraita says the Methalaneng project is one of the most important interventions under WASH. This was one of the most remote locations we ever worked in, so implementation was a challenge.

But, UNICEF’s role is to ensure all people, regardless of their location have safe water.

The challenge with WASH in Lesotho, he explains, “is not about availability of water because the country has a lot of it”.

“The problem is that the water has to be accessible to people. It has to be where the people are. The water has to be in clinics, it has to be in schools, it has to be in or very close to households. And,

Lesotho is prone to climate change, especially droughts. So, we have to ensure that we construct and rehabilitate our water systems in such a way that they can cope when droughts or even flooding occur”

He says, we still have over 400 000 people in Lesotho that need access to safe drinking water in their households. In addition, more than 700 schools and over 30 health facilities lack adequate water supply in their premises.

“We are working in all these settings to ensure the people in this country have water. For this project that had support from the UK Government, we are focusing on rural water supply and our aim was to ensure we put in place systems that can be able to cope with droughts,” Keraita says.

We invested over 13 million maloti and rehabilitated and constructed 79 community water supply systems serving water to communities, schools and health care facilities.

“This project has benefited more than 100 000 people, including over 14,000 learners in 69 schools across 7 districts in Lesotho,” he says.

He expressed sincere thanks to the UK Government for the continued support to UNICEF to increase access to drinking water in Lesotho, and the Ministry of Water, for their continued collaboration.

Staff Reporter