College of Medicine pleads for own hospital
College of Medicine (CoM) needs to have its own teaching hospital to help the institution realise set medical goals, authorities have said.
CoM Principal, Mwapatsa Mipando, said the school is currently obliged to follow other medical facilities’ policies where it sends students for training.
“We would want Malawi to have facilities where teaching can be at the higher level and good patient care can be accessed and even researched. We would want to make sure that we are also doing more postgraduate training,” he said.
Mipando said currently, the constituent college of University of Malawi sends students abroad for studies and that even some patients are sent to other countries, making the process costly.
Meanwhile, Amsterdam University from The Netherlands has hinted that it is considering helping CoM to establish a university teaching hospital.
“It [teaching hospital] is important. We have 20 pediatricians in Malawi, it would be a fantastic goal to double that number in the next five to 10 years,” Hans Van Goudoever, who is Director of Emma Children’s Hospital at Amsterdam University, said.
He is one of the top pediatricians in Netherlands which has about 1,200 pediatricians despite being similar with Malawi in size and population.
Van Goudoever, therefore, said the hospital would have a “huge impact on the quality of life for future generations.”
Van Goudoever made the remarks when the two universities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Blantyre, specifically in pediatric studies.
The MoU will see the two institutions, among other goals, share knowledge and training of medical experts.
CoM currently sends its students to other hospitals such as Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and Kamuzu Central Hospital for training.
The college was opened in 1991 and has been in working relationship with Amsterdam University for 20 years.
Mathews Kasanda is a journalist who holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from University of Malawi (The Polytechnic).
In 2015, Media Institute of Southern Africa awarded him the Best Print Media Education Journalist of the Year accolade.
He joined Times Group Newsroom in September 2019.
