The Nelson Mandela University (NMU) medical school has committed to absorb the returning Cuban cohort of about 50 medical students.
This was announced by minister of higher education Blade Nzimande during the launch of the R73m medical school situated at Missionvale in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape.
“To this end, my department has contributed a total 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.
He said the development of the school was first planned in 2013, with only just a business plan. Nzimande said although the school was only launched on Tuesday the first cohort of students were nearing the end of their 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 health care programmes. The school will generally add to the much-needed health professionals that our country so need in order to improve our health system as a country,” he said.
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.
He said what was more pleasing was that the Missionvale location was also within the socio-economic development precinct and education hub.
“Therefore, the Missionvale campus location of the medical school offers opportunities for an embedded health sciences programme, strongly responsive to community needs, and also offers excellent opportunities for learning for medical school students,” Nzimande said.
He said his department through the Clinical Training Grant, 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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