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Nursing, midwifery vacancy rate at 75%

Principal of Kamuzu College of Nursing and Midwifery Address Malata says the nursing vacancy rate in the country is at 75 percent, adding there is need for more collaboration among stakeholders to rectify the situation.

Speaking yesterday during the opening of a Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (Carta) in Lilongwe, Malata said quality healthcare cannot be improved with the current shortage of human resource.

NursesSaid Malata: “The current vacancy rate of nurses and midwives is huge. Of course, as a way of solving this problem, the University of Malawi has responded by creating new PhD programmes.”

But she said there is need to intensify research, noting that while the country is concerned with human resources for health in terms of providing bedside and other clinical care for patients, research will help unearth new methods of training individuals and improve the health sector.

“As a country, we have greatly benefited from Carta because the country has the highest total number of fellows under the armpit of the organisation. Malawi developed a national health research agenda whose lifespan is four years from 2012 aiming at ensuring that research is in line with national development priorities,” said Malata.

African Population and Health Research Centre director Alex Ezeh said it is important for African universities to work together as they normally have similar problems.

“We have to take a leading role in training scholars because a student, once trained in Africa, has got a high chance of working anywhere in the continent,” said Ezeh.

According to him, university education in most sub-Saharan African countries  face many challenges, including unprecedented growth in student enrolment and the expansion of training programmes, among others.

Carta was formed   to strengthen research infrastructure in African universities and to support doctoral training through a model collaborative PhD programme in population and public health.

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