The Okongo District Hospital in Ohangwena Region is still without an operating theatre, which Health Director John Hango says remains a major obstacle to the adequate provision of health care systems in the region.

The non-availability of a theatre at the hospital has resulted in staff making use of the casualty or any other rooms available to conduct minor operations.

More serious cases, like caesarean sections, are referred to Onandjokwe Intermediate Hospital, which is 200 kilometres away.

75-year-old Ngheendati Mwashindange, who was born at Ohakafiya Village in the Epembe constituency of the Ohangwena Region in 1949, has returned home after five decades.

Mwashindange left his father's homestead at the age of 26 in 1975 to look for contract work in Ondangwa.

He secured a job at a mine in Omaruru in 1975, where he worked until 1978.

Since then, he has been working with various farmers as a cattle herder.

With time, he found himself a wife and settled at Okarundu Nr. 6 in the Karibib constituency, Erongo Region.