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NMU medical school to absorb students returning from Cuba

YOLISWA SOBUWA

The Nelson Mandela University (NMU) medical school has committed to absorbing the returning Cuban cohort of about 50 medical students.

This was announced by higher education minister Dr Blade Nzimande during the launch of the R73m medical school at Missionvale in Gqeberha.

“To this end, my department has contributed an amount of just over R100m in the past three years to support the clinical training of the Cuban cohort. We are thankful for NMU’S commitment, as the Cuban cohort is made up of students from disadvantaged communities.”

Nzimande said the development of the school was first planned in 2013, with just a business plan.

While the official launch took place on Tuesday, the first cohort of students was nearing the end of the first year of study.

“The NMU medical school aims to position health education to be more responsive to our country’s health needs, by widening access to healthcare programmes.

“The school will generally add to the number of muchneeded health professionals to improve our health system as a country.”

Nzimande said he was pleased that the school was also committed to an inter-professional health sciences education model and that it was planning to use global technological innovations to support interactive education.

“The location of this medical school at the Missionvale campus has significance, particularly because it’s closer to the Dora Nginza hospital and other community sites.

“This location offers the school excellent opportunities to fulfil its vision as a medical school and the broader health sciences faculty,” Nzimande said. In addition was Missionvale was also within the socioeconomic development precinct and education hub.

“Therefore, the Missionvale campus location offers opportunities for an embedded health sciences programme, strongly responsive to community needs, and also offers excellent opportunities for learning for medical students.”

Nzimande said through the Clinical Training Grant, his department had for the past 13 years been supporting the clinical training of health science professionals that the university had offered in the past, such as nursing, pharmacy, dietetics, emergency medical care, radiography, biokinetics and biomedical technology.

“The provision of these funds will now be extended to the medical programme to cover costs for adequate clinical training staff, equipment and related operational costs so that the university continues to train quality graduates.

“In the current financial year, we allocated a total amount of R644.7m, earmarked for the clinical training of health professionals in the sector and from this allocation NMU was allocated R19m,” Nzimande said.

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2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://dispatch.pressreader.com/article/281651078385179

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