Uni in motion to set up school

THE University of Goroka (UOG) has commenced the process to establish a medical school to address the shortage of medical doctors and practitioners in the country, vice chancellor Professor Musawe Sinebare says.
Sinebare said before gaining university status, the institution’s mandate (as Goroka Teachers College) was to train teachers.
“When it became university, its mandate as spells out in the UOG Act is to train and develop human resources for the country,” Sinebare said.
“Thus, the university has to function as intended and live up to its mandate and deliver.
“There is nothing stopping the university from providing other trainings apart from offering teachers training, and that message has to be translated very clearly to our people and the country,” Sinebare said.
He said the university would establish a standalone medical school with a teaching hospital.
“In the country, we have only one medical school and the doctors to patient’s ratio is very low,” he said.
“One doctor is to some 16,000 plus people and according to our own research, it will take some 300 years to bring the ratio down to the acceptable standard.
“We have the UPNG School of Medicine but the capacity is not enough to train more doctors to match the increasing need for doctors in the country.
“On the other end the Port Moresby General Hospital, which the UPNG Medical School uses, is a public hospital under the National Health Department and the UPNG is using at the mercy of the Health Department for teaching student.”
Sinebare said the acceptable standard for medical school globally was for them to have their own teaching hospital. Meanwhile, the university council and management had thanked the Government for allocating a new bus, which was used during the Apec Leaders’ Summit last year, to the university.
Pro vice-chancellor, policy and planning, Donald Gumbis said the university was in the process of registering the bus and sorting out legal documents before it can be shipped to Lae and to Goroka.