By Sorie Ibrahim Fofanah
The Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Austin Demby has turned the sod for the construction of the Basic Medical Sciences Faculty at the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS) Kossoh Town campus, which according to him will be used for postgraduate medical studies and other related matters.
The event which took place at the COMAHS’ Kossoh Town campus on 23rd May 2024 saw the Health Minister explaining the need to have a post graduate medical school in Sierra Leone that he believes will address the issue of medical graduates going outside Sierra Leone to further their studies.
“When students have completed their basic medical education, many of them go overseas for postgraduate training. Most of those who go overseas would choose not to return home. So, we want to expand our postgraduate training by ensuring that medical students do their postgraduate studies here in accordance with global standards,” Demby added.
According to him, the new faculty will make provision for electronic learning.
He noted how medical students will improve their skills at a medical school that will stand out on the global stage.
The minister called on the college administration to increase the intake of applicants and increase the number of graduating students in a bid to address the limited number of medical doctors and pharmacists in the heallth sector to improve healthcare system in the country. He said the government has “vested interest” in the health sector, and expressed the hope that the medical school will produce 600 graduates per year instead of their usual 50 turn.
In his statement, the Deputy Minister of Technical and Higher Education, Sajor Aziz Kallon urged the project manager for timely delivery of the faculty, and for a “quality” job to be done.
Kallon recognised the need to improve the medical infrastructure and that five thousand medical doctor’s nationwide are needed to meet the growing demands of the country’s population, assuring the administration they will ensure that the Chinese Hospital at Jui becomes part of the teaching hospital for the medical college.
“The support of the government is to ensure that COMAHS becomes the flagship within the continent,” he said.
Speaking during the event, the Vice Chancellor for COMAHS, Professor Mohamed Samai said: “If we are to produce 200 doctors a year, we have to ensure we have the basic infrastructure and also the basic number of trainers,” he emphasised. He went on to disclose how they admitted over 600 medical students this academic year.
Samai called on the government to help them with the postgraduate training for which he said doctors were going outside Sierra Leone, but that strengthening the postgraduate training in the country will encourage medical doctors not to go outside for studies.
He however noted that: “The survival of the postgraduate training can be threatened if we don’t heavily support the undergraduate training, because the undergraduate is the institution that provides the product’’.
The construction of the Basic Medical Sciences Faculty is a 3 million dollars project by the Government of Sierra Leone through the Sexual and Reproductive Health Right Project.
Copyright © 2024 Politico (27/05/24)
