BQA, BHPC deal commendable

Mmegi Editor | Friday May 19, 2017 09:53

In the deal, BHPC, which is a regulatory body for health professional practitioners, will be engaged in quality assurance in health training programmes in the country.

BHPC has in the past rooted out unscrupulous doctors and surgeons who engaged in unethical practices that resulted in permanent injuries to patients and loss of lives in some extreme situations.

This is a very important milestone in the history of our education sector and it is commendable. Health, like other sectors, is a very important cornerstone of the very existence of any nation and its workforce and therefore empirical to have well-trained doctors, nurses, surgeons, and specialists among others.

It is also important to have psychologists, paramedics, and emergency workers who are skilled in handling situations in a professional manner as they execute their daily duties.

This is an overdue arrangement, especially for the fact that the mushrooming of training institutions across the country is unleashing half-baked graduates into the work market, including in the health sector. Other professional bodies for sectors that have been left behind should also come to the party and collaborate with training institutions to ensure that graduates they produce are of high quality and that their curriculum is of international standards.

This will go a long way in addressing unemployment among our youth since there will be no excuse for employers not to absorb graduates into the workplace.

It is also important for the Ministry of Basic Education to ensure that it produces quality students who gain entry into our tertiary institutions, and are not only in class to gain allowance and undeserving marks, but are also keen to absorb information pertaining to their career path.

There are many students in tertiary institutions waiting to be spoon-fed by their lecturers only to graduate with certificates, but very little skills acquired.

They end up in offices performing sensitive tasks such as designing roads and buildings, taking care of the sick, approving multi-million pula contracts, and deciding on freedoms of suspects among other duties.

All these should be executed with due diligence by highly skilled officers, otherwise they can result in huge costs to the taxpayer in litigation against Government, or even loss of lives. 

We hope that BHPC will not compromise on quality and will ensure that its officers are not easily corrupted to approve low quality programmes. We are confident that this arrangement will improve the quality of health education in the country and that BHPC will ensure that it recruits the right staff that will cope with the workload.

 

Today’s thought 

“By training and keeping doctors in underserved areas, we’re working toward a goal of increasing access to quality health care for more of our communities.” 

 - Chris Gibson