MPUMALANGA Health MEC, Sasekani Manzini, has congratulated 61 medical students from the province who have graduated from the Nelson Mandela/Fidel Castro Medical Collaboration Programme.
The graduation ceremony was held at the University of Cape Town on Friday, 7 July. Manzini said the number of graduates from Mpumalanga will contribute to the increasing need for health services in the province.
“We are delighted that Mpumalanga has also registered a number of graduates that will ensure our people, especially those in our rural areas, benefit from healthcare services that will be rendered to them.
"We can never have enough doctors, hence we continuously encourage high school pupils who have a vision to become doctors to take part in the programme. We will ensure we allocate the 61 doctors to communities that are in dire need of doctors," she said.
Manzini said historically, Mpumalanga is one of the previously disadvantaged provinces that needs doctors. She said the province participates in the programme as a strategy that the department uses to improve human resource capacity, address the shortage of doctors and strengthen the healthcare system in the province.
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“We would like to urge more high school pupils to consider studying medicine in order to ensure they contribute to the provision of quality healthcare services to our communities. The province hopes to have an increased number of graduates in the next graduation ceremony, thus benefitting more communities," she said.
One of the graduates, Samkelo Simelane (28) said: "We're really grateful to the provincial and national governments. We're changed people. We hope to change our community in Mpumalanga. Above everything, we thank God for finally making it. It has been a long seven years of studying.
"This has actually changed our lives in a lot of ways, especially because the training that we got is just training on medicine. But we have learnt a different number of things and different aspects of the spirit of Ubuntu from the Cubans. The media can play a major role by spreading the news about this wonderful programme so it can get more support from our communities."
According to national Department of Health, 464 Mzansi medical students graduated on Friday. Sixty-one Mpumalanga students graduated, 124 were from Gauteng, 27 were from Eastern Cape, three were from Free State, 43 were from KZN, while 110 students from Limpopo graduated.
