Government is considering increasing the number of medical schools in Zimbabwe, a cabinet minister has said.
By HealthTimes Reporter
At the moment the country has only three medical schools at the University of Zimbabwe, National University of Science and Technology and Midlands State University.
Officiating the inaugural International Federation of Medical Students Association African regional meeting at UZ College of Health Sciences, Health and Childcare Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said the enrolment of medical students in Zimbabwe was below 300.
“We train here I was told by the Zimbabwe Medical Students Association president that there are 210 eh Now in Zimbabwe there are three medical schools. This one here, and one in Bulawayo which is our second largest city and another one in Gweru, which is the heart of Zimbabwe. But all of them don’t come to 300 a year. We still need more,” he said.
He added that there is need to have more state of the art medical schools.
“Perhaps we still need more medical schools. Bigger medical schools. But once you have a medical school, you must have a nice teaching hospital by it and you must have appropriate specialties so that these students are not compromised in terms of what they absorb,” said the Minster.
Minister Parirenyatwa revealed that Government is looking into the matter.
“So we are looking at that as a government, at how we increase our student population,” he said.
Students from 10 African countries will be discussing on issues affecting them for the next two days. The event runs under the theme Medical Social Accountability in Resource Limited Communities.
