Education project to help improve health services

The principal investigator of the project, Prof Ephata Kaaya, (rigtht) speaks to the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences Vice Chancellor, Prof Andrea Pembe, (centre), and the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Dr Leonard Akwilapo, during the launch of an education programme in Dar es Salaam yesterday. PHOTO | MUHAS

What you need to know:

  • Health sector stakeholders have expressed optimism over the newly launched project titled “Transforming Health Professionals Education in Tanzania” that it will transform the delivery of health services

Dar es Salaam. Health sector stakeholders on Thursday expressed optimism over the newly launched project—the Transforming Health Professionals Education in Tanzania (THET).

THET, a Sh7-billion project that seeks to transform health education training in Tanzania, is a consortium of three medical universities, including the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (Muhas), Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences (Cuhas) and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre College (KCM College).

Speaking during the project’s stakeholder meeting held in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Dr Leonard Akwilapo, said THET has come at the time when the government is working to streamline healthcare delivery services.

Dr Akwilapo further commended the universities for coming up with the initiative to boost health professionals’ education.

“The government encourages health professionals to deliver quality healthcare services to the members of the public living in both rural and urban areas,” emphasised DrAkwilapo.

The PS called upon the stakeholders to closely work with THET to ensure that the project becomes successful and useful to the country. Stakeholders believe the project’s aim to come up with a competency-based curriculum to boost health professionals education in the country, would enable the medical universities to generate competent healthcare providers who are ready to work in both urban and rural areas.

The meeting involved representatives from the Medical Council of Tanganyika (MCT), the Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU) as well as several other medical colleges from across the country. The THET team, involves Muhas, Cuhas, and KCMCollege in collaboration with the California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Duke University.

For his part, the deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics) for Cuhas, Prof Stephen Mshana, said the country needed such a curriculum to ensure that patients were served by high quality graduates.

“For years, we didn’t have a common training curriculum for health professionals’ education in Tanzania, as a consequence, the graduates from medical universities lacked adequate competencies to deliver quality healthcare services to patients,” said Prof Mshana.