DOCTORS TO BE FINALLY TRAINED IN SD

MBABANE – It has taken 10 years of sweat and tears for the Swaziland Christian Medical University’s Faculty of Medicine to be operational and relieve government’s spending on medical students studying outside the country.

Each medical student costs government E600 000 for a six- year course to study outside the country.  The country has turned the tide as the university will be admitting its first batch of medical students, possibly in August this year.
SCMU was established in 2006 and government approved the proposal for medical and ICT studies but the institution was faced with numerous challenges.

Some of these included failure to pay staff on time, several grievances by students that included, but are not limited to shortage of books, laboratories and lecturers. The university had accused government of failing to release salaries and not giving them the promised E27 million for medicine related programmes. Minister of Education and Training Phineas Magagula said the establishment of the school of medicine was a flagship for the institution.

 Magagula said the country had, for a long time, relied on sending students to study Medicine abroad, which was expensive for government. “You just have to look at the statistics on the number of doctors that we have trained but for some reason they are now practising somewhere else.”

According to the minister, the establishment of the Faculty of Medicine will enable students to pursue their six-year degree in Medicine locally and this will motivate them to work in the country. Yesterday, the minister also witnessed the delivery of various equipment and furniture for the nine SCU laboratory facilities. These included, among others, pharmacy, radiography and nursing. Magagula thanked the Africa Continent Mission and government for assisting SCMU to achieve this milestone.

He acknowledged that when the university was first established, it faced certain challenges but added that problems were part of the journey.
“As you are aware, one of the conditions of accreditation of an institution of higher learning is the issue of provision of adequate equipment,” Magagula said.

He expressed his joy on the arrival of the equipment and furniture, stating that he was now seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Pastor Chong- Yang Kim of Africa Continent Mission said Swaziland have a well organised network of health facilities that would provide a strong platform for the clinical training of medical students. He said SCMU proposed the medical school project to alleviate the shortage of health professionals in the kingdom.

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