Outcry over NUST medical school

This was said during a meeting that was held at the United Bulawayo Hospitals last week. It was said that the school had literally collapsed due to there being no students or lecturers.

This project has gone to waste, the Medical and Dental Association of Zimbabwe are not showing much concern about this, said one Doctor. Students and staff members have all left the country for greener pastures. The other issue is that the doctors need a conducive environment to learn in and NUST is not providing this. Dr Douglas Gandanhamo, a local Radiologist, said that the country did not have the capacity to train specialized doctors.

We do not have the capacity to train radiologists or haematologists, just to mention a few, so the only option is to have them trained outside the country and that costs a lot of money. We are appealing to the government to assist through the Presidents Office to enable doctors to get scholarships to train for some of these specialized fields and come back and use their expertise in the country, said Gandanhamo.

The Director of information for the university, Felix Moyo, defended the project and said it was still running. If you say the project is stagnant it will be incorrect, it is still up and running, he said. Moyo said that the school was facing problems just like any other institution in the country.

The school is functional ever since we opened 5 years ago. We have actually complied with the directives we received from the Medical Association of Zimbabwe (MCZ) and everything is order, he said. On the issue of shortage of staff at the school, he said that the school was not the only one affected as many others were in that same situation. The Faculty opened its doors in January 2005 for 18 students, followed by a second intake of 17 students in September 2005. Teaching activities are mainly based at the Mpilo laboratories.