NOT IN PUBLIC INTEREST

Sir,

My letter is in response to an article that appeared in the Times SUNDAY, dated February 10, 2019; a comment by the Director of Health Services, Dr Nicholas and the registrar of the Swaziland Medical and Dental Council. Firstly, I want to bemoan the level of corruption in our country. It is my sincere hope that the new government will deal decisively with corrupt government officials for the benefit of our poor citizens.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) is one of the ministries that have been infested by the plague of corruption. It is in a serious mess. Apart from the looting of public money from Phalala Fund through evil collusions as previously reported, now comes the issue of doctors. Some officials in the ministry are out to scandalise Eswatini doctors who have been trained outside of Africa, in particular Taiwan.

Through the good relation that our country has with Taiwan, a number of emaSwati have been offered scholarships to further their studies in Taiwan. Included among these is a number of doctors.

Scholarships

Other than Taiwan, there is no other country that has offered so many scholarships to study medicine. It is worth mentioning that the training of doctors is the most expensive than any other field of study. That is why less scholarships are offered in this field. Our country must indeed be grateful to Taiwan for such assistance.

Furthermore, Taiwan has one of the best healthcare systems in the world; surpassing most of the countries in Europe and America. This is evidenced by their higher life expectancy. Taiwan has the best medical technology that you could think of. All major surgeries and treatment modalities are available in Taiwan. No one patient has been referred to be treated outside of Taiwan because their healthcare system is highly efficient, so it is unfathomable how then their medical education can be looked down upon.

Coming back to our country, the healthcare system is in a mess. The ratio of doctor-patient is absurdly high. Our country needs more doctors than ever before; not just doctors, but emaSwati doctors who will provide culturally relevant care. Our country has a lot of foreign doctors, more than 80 per cent. It is really sad when the Ministry of Health prefers foreign doctors over emaSwati. One just wonders what the officials are benefitting by bringing foreign doctors into our country. Due to poor controls and screening, we have seen fake doctors being hired to treat emaSwati. But now that it is emaSwati, it is a struggle to hire them. This is really sad and painful.

Fight

This is a fight against Taiwan trained doctors more than anything as evidenced by our engagement with the Ministry of Health. It is really unclear why they are doing this. To insinuate that graduates trained outside of Africa do not practice on real patients is part of the smear campaign which is based on unfounded truth. I may not be sure about those trained in other countries, but in Taiwan we do practice on real patients and we have all the evidence to prove it.

Because the MoH based their argument on the premise that the disease prevalence is different from those of Africa, the curriculum of medical schools must meet certain minimum standards. That is why there are bodies such as world medical directory that screen all medical schools to see if they meet such requirements. Even though we may meet few cases of diseases prevalent in our country, we have extensively learnt a lot about all diseases. It does not make sense to say we are lacking in terms of knowledge.

Incompetency

Furthermore, all students in Taiwan are post graduates. We all have first degrees in a medically related field. Most of us have been nurses before with vast clinical experience. Therefore, the issue of incompetency is neither here nor there. There is more than it meets the eye in as far as this issue is concerned.
The premise that graduates trained in Africa are better than those trained beyond is invalid.

It is not backed by credible and/or substantive evidence. It is assumption-based. There is no credible tool that has been used to quantify graduates to support the claim mentioned thereof. Even if it turns out to be true, the SDMC ought to develop a programme that will fill such gaps. It is worth noting that diabetes and hypertension in Asia, Africa or anywhere in the world are the same.

The disease prevalence is not that much different so as to suggest that people must only train in Africa to work in Africa. There has been a lot of doctors from countries such as Cuba given licences to practice medicine in our country, and the council didn’t have qualms with that. The registrar herself has been trained outside of Africa.We know that she is from India. Just because now it is emaSwati coming back to serve their people, they see a problem.

Tears of a medical student

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