Civil society urges Malawi gov’t to reinstate tuition subsidy for nurses
Malawi’s civil society organisations on Monday petitioned government over its decision to stop paying nurses and midwifery students school fees in the form of subsidies to train them at Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) colleges.
The government, through Ministry of Health, announced early this year that it had ceased to subsidise US$2,392 needed by each student studying at the privately-owned CHAM colleges due to budgetary constraints, whereby students were paying US$224 each to study nursing courses.
National Organisation for Nurses and Midwives of Malawi (NONM) Executive Director Dorothy Ng’oma (pictured) said in Lilongwe that government should reverse the decision on the payment of the college fees to avoid a continued shortage of health personnel in the country’s hospitals.
Malawi only has 4,450 nurses/midwives practising in the public sector, with a prevailing 76 percent vacancy rate.
“The recent development on the introduction of full tuition fees for nurses/midwives training poses a great threat towards addressing the inadequate human resources in the health sector in the country,” she said.–APA
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