THE country’s institutions of higher learning are struggling to absorb an overflowing number of applicants aspiring to study medicine and other health-related courses, with only one percent of candidates being successful.
This emerged during a high-level policy dialogue held in
Bulawayo on Monday.
The two-day indaba which ended yesterday provided a health
labour market analysis (HLMA) while identifying priority health workforce
investment opportunities, and building consensus on strategic priorities and
investment options to help inform a national health workforce strategy and
investment plan.
The findings of the HLMA are expected to inform
policymakers on the strategies that need to be adopted in the health sector.
The study revealed that there is a high demand for people
intending to venture into health and medical-related fields while only a
fraction of those aspiring to study secure places in universities.
Some of the institutions that offer medicine in the country
include the University of Zimbabwe, the National University of Science and
Technology (Nust), Midlands State University (MSU), and Great Zimbabwe
University (GZU) among others.
Findings from the HLMA established that an average of 89
applicants compete for one vacancy to enroll as doctors countrywide.
“With 397 185 applicants for admission in the 2021 academic
year, only 4 134 of the prospective health professions’ students were offered
places, which translates to one percent of the applicants who got places to
train,” reads part of the findings.
According to the HLMA findings, there is a sharp decline in
the number of health workers who left the country last year compared to 2021.
“Migration of health workers from Zimbabwe has been a
longstanding phenomenon. In December 2021, the overall attrition rate in the
public health sector stood at 8 percent. This has gone down to 3,8 percent by
the end of 2022,” reads the report.
The report further showed that at least 41 percent of
health workers are planning to leave the country.
“Among 2 687 health workers surveyed, 41 percent had
intentions to migrate abroad, of which, 53 percent had started working on their
plans to migrate. Of those with intentions to migrate, 3,8 percent are planning
to leave within the next six months,” read the report.
“Another 7,2 percent have plans of migrating within a year
while 74,5 percent intended to migrate to work and 21,4 percent for further
studies.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, Health Services
Commission (HSC) human resources general manager, Ms Nona Zhou said the HLMA
findings are critical as they provide up-to-date information on developments in
the health sector.
“This research is critical in the sense that it is
scientific research. It will make a difference in the sense that we will be
approaching Treasury or partners to say this is what is required. The World
Health Organisation (WHO) provided us with tools that we used to calculate,
looking at the number of nurses and doctors we will need say by 2030,” she
said.
“From the available data, we can now tell that the
Government at this point in time can afford this much unlike in the past
because there is information from this study.”
Ms Nona said the research findings also outline areas of
cooperation between the Government and development partners.
She said there is a need to cover the gaps that exist in
the training of health workers and urged the private sector to come on board.
Ms Nona commended health workers for their dedication to
duty, saying Zimbabwe has the highest productivity and performance rate in the
African continent at 75 percent.
Zimbabwe Council of Higher Education (Zimche) chief
director for life and health sciences Professor Felicity Gumbo said the HLMA
results should be aligned with the training of those in the health sector.
“The training of people in the health sector feeds into the
training for the country so that the Ministry of Health and Child Care maps out
the skills that are required while the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary
Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development fulfills those
needs,” she said.
Prof Gumbo said the HLMA research confirms that more needs
to be done to train specialists in the health sector as there is a 95 percent
gap.
“The evidence is clear that we still have not made huge
strides in addressing the skills deficit in the medicine and health sciences.
The second recommendation is that we might need to expand our training,” she
said.
“The number of places for students to train in medicine is
quite limited. As a result, even those who would have really passed with flying
colours are failing to make it.”
Prof Gumbo said there is also a need to retain lecturers as
some of them are leaving the country resulting in a brain drain in the health
sector.
She said the brain drain is also affecting the expansion of
education in the medical field.
“The country also needs to invest more in modern equipment
in hospitals as this is necessary in producing quality health personnel,” said
Prof Gumbo. Chronicle
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