Mloganzila faces acute staff shortage

Dar es Salaam. Tanzanian doctors who have attended one-year medical training in Korea have been challenged to join the newly opened Muhimbili Academic Medical Centre (MAMC) at Mloganzila as the centre faces an acute staff shortage.

The Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) Vice Chancellor for Hospital Services, Prof Said Aboud, said the doctors should join efforts to make MAMC a centre of excellence in medical services in the country.

Currently, MAMC has a total of 533 staff, he said. “Based on the initial assessment, at the optimal level we need at least 968 staff to work at the hospital. But 1,300 is the realistic number of staff needed.”

More than 100 Tanzanian doctors have been trained in various medical disciplines at the Yonsei University Severance Hospital under the Dr Lee Jong-Wook Fellowship programme offered by the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare (KOFIH).

“We need more qualified medical doctors, medical specialists, nurses, biomedical engineers and all other cadres to reach the required human resource to work at the hospital,” Prof Aboud said during a dinner meeting for Dr Lee Jong-Wook Fellowship programme and Yonsei University alumni in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday.

Prof Aboud was optimistic that the alumni who have already joined MAMC will continue offering their service at the hospital, urging them to maintain the spirit of excellence, commitment and dedication in provision of quality services to the patients.

“For those who are not currently working with MAMC, I encourage them to apply for transfers to MAMC. We will be more than happy to welcome them. There should be no more excuses that we cannot do it,” he told the alumni.

So far, he said, more than 7,000 patients have been attended to in our Out Patient Department clinics and some 200 patients who have been admitted since the hospital was officially opened last November.

For her part, Jiin An, the First Secretary and Deputy Chief of Mission of the Korean Embassy in Tanzania, said the MAMC hospital is the landmark project between the two countries, adding that the hospital will become a major success story of the existing cordial bilateral cooperation.