Dentistry students to be placed
The health minister has responded to the plight of 27 dentistry students who had returned from Russia, Ukraine, China and Belarus with degrees but little practical experience.
Health minister Bernard Haufiku has announced that he has managed to “scrape together” N$3.7 million to arrange internships for 27 dentistry graduates.
Seventeen of them will be placed immediately and the remaining ten graduates later.
The graduates, who studied in Russia, Ukraine, China and Belarus, had pleaded for months for the ministry to place them, as they had to sell T-shirts and do other menial jobs to make a living.
Most of them had already passed a pre-internship evaluation in November last year. According to Haufiku the situation was so frustrating that graduates and their parents had been “knocking at his door” pleading for intervention.
He said the N$3.7 million from the health ministry's budget would be used to procure dentist's chairs in order to place interns at training facilities staffed with senior dentists. Cornelius Weyulu, the registrar of the Health Professions Council, confirmed that all the graduates had been approved as interns and were just waiting to be placed.
“Before they become full dentists they must undergo mentorship because all of them did not have enough exposure at college or university level so that they are prepared to practise and when they are posted they will be able to manage on their own,” he said.
Meanwhile, Haufiku has announced that the Health Professions Bill, which he has been pushing for in order to compel medical staff to go to rural areas, will be debated in parliament when it resumes in June.
He said, however, he had little confidence that it would be passed, as there was a group of people, mostly pharmacists, who opposed the bill and was hell-bent on keeping it from becoming law.
“There is a lot of lobbying going on… But we do not think that the issues they raise will override the general public interest in health. They are there in their comfortable lives; they are not treated at Okongo or Okanguati. If this bill is not approved then it will be the biggest blow to the health sector,” he said.
As it stands now, rural clinics are without doctors and other staff because nobody can be forced to work at remote villages such as Aroab, Okongo or Impalila Island.
The bill would also force Namibian and foreign doctors alike to work for the government before going into private practice.
It would also merge the existing five health councils into one board with five professional boards that can establish technical committees to streamline workflow.
“I would like to share with the public that I have signed appointment letters for an interim health professions council of Namibia until the Health Professions Bill is approved and signed into law,” said Haufiku.
JEMIMA BEUKES
Seventeen of them will be placed immediately and the remaining ten graduates later.
The graduates, who studied in Russia, Ukraine, China and Belarus, had pleaded for months for the ministry to place them, as they had to sell T-shirts and do other menial jobs to make a living.
Most of them had already passed a pre-internship evaluation in November last year. According to Haufiku the situation was so frustrating that graduates and their parents had been “knocking at his door” pleading for intervention.
He said the N$3.7 million from the health ministry's budget would be used to procure dentist's chairs in order to place interns at training facilities staffed with senior dentists. Cornelius Weyulu, the registrar of the Health Professions Council, confirmed that all the graduates had been approved as interns and were just waiting to be placed.
“Before they become full dentists they must undergo mentorship because all of them did not have enough exposure at college or university level so that they are prepared to practise and when they are posted they will be able to manage on their own,” he said.
Meanwhile, Haufiku has announced that the Health Professions Bill, which he has been pushing for in order to compel medical staff to go to rural areas, will be debated in parliament when it resumes in June.
He said, however, he had little confidence that it would be passed, as there was a group of people, mostly pharmacists, who opposed the bill and was hell-bent on keeping it from becoming law.
“There is a lot of lobbying going on… But we do not think that the issues they raise will override the general public interest in health. They are there in their comfortable lives; they are not treated at Okongo or Okanguati. If this bill is not approved then it will be the biggest blow to the health sector,” he said.
As it stands now, rural clinics are without doctors and other staff because nobody can be forced to work at remote villages such as Aroab, Okongo or Impalila Island.
The bill would also force Namibian and foreign doctors alike to work for the government before going into private practice.
It would also merge the existing five health councils into one board with five professional boards that can establish technical committees to streamline workflow.
“I would like to share with the public that I have signed appointment letters for an interim health professions council of Namibia until the Health Professions Bill is approved and signed into law,” said Haufiku.
JEMIMA BEUKES
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