A team of senior officials from the directorate of Post Graduate Training, Non-communicable Diseases and Research in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, on Thursday 29 March paid a courtesy call on the WHO Representative, Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu. The purpose of the visit was to update Dr Alemu on the on-going support for the introduction of local post graduate training and Continuing Professional Development that WHO is supporting. The team was led by Dr Donald Bash Taqi, director of the programme. It also included the consultant recruited by the ministry with support from WHO to facilitate pre-validation of the draft policy documents including the Postgraduate Bill, Strategic Plan and Curricula for various medical and nursing disciplines and a document for strategic direction. The team briefed the WR on the draft policy documents and informed him that the Bill has been developed and is expected to be enacted by Parliament.
Dr Alemu assured the team, of WHO’s continued support for local postgraduate training and Continuing Professional Development for health specialties. He said he was pleased with the progress report so far; noting that human resource development for health is one of the critical priority areas of WHO and of Dr Luis G. Sambo, Regional Director for the WHO African region.
WHO is supporting the country to improve its poor health infrastructure and inadequate health human resource by supporting the establishment of a post graduate training college to produce health professionals, with the appropriate specialty, skills mix and quantity to improve the country’s health challenges. The institutional capacity for training has been re-assessed and the conclusion is that there is need to upscale in-country postgraduate training of medical and nursing specialists.

Sierra Leone’s health care system is challenged by high shortage of trained health workforce, a situation, which is further exacerbated by a high attrition rate of qualified health professionals. Hence the commencement of local postgraduate training and CPD programmes in specialized disciplines is seen as an important milestone to improve service delivery. This will also improve the quality of undergraduate training and help to reduce the high attrition rate among the skilled health workforce.

Ministry of Health Officials Brief WHO Representative on progress for Post Graduate College for Sierra Leone

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