After extensive planning, the North-West University (NWU), in collaboration with the North West Department of Health, will establish a medical school and contribute to training world-class medical graduates.
This is perfect timing, considering that South Africa has a dire shortage of medical doctors, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, and this shortage of doctors can have catastrophic consequences for the country’s healthcare and economic sectors, which are already under severe strain. In the public sector, South Africa has 0,37 doctors per 1 000 people, which is in stark contrast to the WHO’s minimum recommendation of one doctor per 1 000 people.
The NWU Medical School will address this dilemma and aid in providing a different healthcare scenario for the country’s citizens. An estimated 70 000 to 80 000 more doctors are needed to buffer the existing shortage, and at the current rate of medical graduates completing their studies, this will take more than 40 years to rectify – without considering population growth.
By establishing South Africa’s 11th medical school, the NWU will also supplement the number of doctors in North West, where there are only 0,21 doctors per 1 000 people. It is an abysmal figure, and intervention is urgently needed.
“For the NWU, it is about more than just providing medical graduates of quality for the health workforce. A part of the university's mission is to be responsive to the health needs of North West, the country and the continent at large. This medical programme will be the most extensive and complex ever presented by this higher-education institution,” says Prof Petra Bester, director of the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research (AUTHeR) and the operations lead of the NWU Medical School project team.
“Our purpose with the medical school will be to enable and develop highly skilled generalist practitioners who can also support the district health system. It will provide community-oriented medical graduates to achieve the highest personal and professional development necessary to comprehensively and expertly attend to the health needs of their communities,” she adds.
“The NWU Medical School will pave the way for the NWU, the province and the country to be seen as leaders and innovators in the development of a new-century medical curriculum that is fit for purpose and relevant to the disease burden of the new millennium,” explains Prof Awie Kotzé, executive dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences.
The 2024 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject listed the NWU in the 601 to 650 category for medicine and health sciences, and the NWU Medical School will be built on the foundations laid by its renowned Faculty of Health Sciences, which has a decades-long stellar reputation for training and delivering pharmacists, nurses, dieticians, biokineticists, psychologists and social workers. This has resulted in the NWU being the preferred university to teach and train medical doctors jointly with the North West Department of Health.
According to Prof Binu Luke, project lead of the NWU Medical School and chief specialist physician and technical adviser in the North West Department of Health, this initiative holds a host of career opportunities for prospective students.
“The provision of healthcare services is complex. They are delivered at various levels in the healthcare system, both in the public and private sector, focusing on promotive, preventative and curative care. The services are delivered by a team of different types of healthcare workers, generally led by doctors who need to have various skill sets, classifying them as general practitioners, specialists, subspecialists and more, with the medical graduate being the entry point of that journey.
“Graduates can also branch out into the fields of governance, clinical research, health regulation, the pharmaceutical industry, international health and more. Education is provided through classroom learning using various traditional and innovative techniques, as well as exposure to the health system, community and patients in the designated health facilities run by the North West provincial Department of Health, primarily in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District and throughout the province. Coordination of these processes and activities and standardised assessment ensuring quality is key to the success of this programme.”
Prof Bester concludes by saying: “With the current quality health improvements and innovations already happening in the province, coupled with establishing the NWU Medical School, we look forward to contributing to an efficient health system.”
