Tanzanian, US health experts meet

Dar es Salaam. Twenty-one Tanzanian and American health professionals met on Saturday, January 20, to share experience in an effort to address various challenges.

They included doctors and nurses, according to Global Health Services Partnership (GHSP) associate director Henry Meena.

He hopes that Tanzanians will benefit immensely from the training.

US volunteer Siodhan McCarthy spoke about the shortage of physicians and nurses in Tanzania.

"There is a need for the government to invest more in training medical personnel to increase efficiency in healthcare service delivery in public hospitals," Dr McCarthy said.

The US doctors and nurses are the fifth class of Peace Corps GHSP who on October 2017 underwent a three-week intensive training in culture at University of Dodoma University to enable them to work for a year in local health schools.

According to World Health Organisation, the current workforce in some most Sub-Saharan African countries need to be scaled up by as much as 140 per cent to attain international health development targets.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the greatest shortage of physicians and nurses. Although the region has 24 per cent of the global disease burden, it has only three per cent of the world's health workforce.