After Peace Ark Mission, Chinese Embassy sends 50 Tanzanian medical students to China for advanced training

Dar es Salaam. The Chinese Embassy in Tanzania on Sunday, August 12, bid farewell to 50 students and members of staff from some hospitals who will be leaving for China for advanced medical training courses.

Twenty of the 50 are students from Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (Muhas) who will pursue further studies at Cheeloo College of Medicine of Shangdong University. 

“These will study for Master’s and Doctoral Degrees in Tanzania's most urgently needed fields of medicine,” the Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania Wang Ke said in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, August 12, 2018.

The remaining 30 are members of staff from different hospitals who will be undertaking a one-month seminar on hospital management.

Speaking at the farewell reception which organised by embassy, Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania Wang Ke said the students pursue further studies at Cheeloo College of Medicine of Shangdong University. 

She said China provides more than 100 government scholarships to Tanzania each year for medical and related disciplines.

Currently, over 4,000 Tanzanian students are studying in China.

Some of them are financed by their own means, mostly in areas of machinery, communication, transportation, finance and engineering.

In November last year (2017), a Chinese naval hospital ship, Peace Ark, docked at the Dar es Salaam Port, complete with 115 doctors and an addition on an eight-day humanitarian mission for provision of free medical services to residents.

The much publicised visit attracted thousands of locals from within Dar es Salaam and neighbouring regions who sought health services. As a result, the ship managed only to attend to only 6,421 patients, leaving out nearly 4,000 unattended to.

Bidding farewell to the ship in November last year, President John Magufuli thanked his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping for sending the doctors to Tanzania and requested for further support from the Asian economic powerhouse in the area of medical training.

Dr Magufuli exuded gratitude on hearing from the Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, Wang Ke that China would not hesitate to send its medical personel once again should Tanzania express the need to bring them back.

President Magufuli asked China to establish pharmaceutical industries and hospitals that will provide services not only to residents of Dar es Salaam but also across the country.

Earlier, Mr Wang said China was ready to offer medical training to Tanzanian soldiers and that his country would keep sending its doctors to Tanzania so they could offer medical services.