By Glory Msowoya, MANA
Beautify Malawi Trust in partnership with Merck Foundation has awarded scholarships to 15 Malawian nurses and doctors to study Oncology, Infertility and Embryology as well as Diabetes Management in India.
BEAM Patron and Ambassador for Merck Foundation in Malawi, First Lady Madame Prof. Gertrude Mutharika presented the scholarships on Wednesday at Sanjika Palace during a luncheon where she said currently Malawi was facing a number of challenges in dealing with non-communicable diseases which require more knowledge in dealing with such diseases hence the scholarships.
“At first when I made an announcement that through BEAM and Merck Foundation partnership medical practitioners will be sent to India for further studies in different fields, there were some doubts because it has never been done before.
“I am very excited to help 15 doctors and nurses to continue their studies in India.I will continue to source more scholarships for medical personnel’s and currently I have already submitted ten names for another cohort of scholarships,”she said.
The First Lady said she was doing this because she understands that this would help the country to achieve United Nations universal health coverage which the country was working towards.
Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Population, Dr. Dan Namarika commended BEAM and Merck Foundation for the scholarships saying it would help the health sector to deal with some of the challenges faced due to lack of skills and knowledge by medical practitioners.
He called on awardees to work hard and create more networks from fellow medical practitioners in India.
“The development by BEAM and Merck Foundation is very commendable.The awardees are expected to acquire more knowledge in different aspects like infertility as the problem is big and does affect the physical, psychological and mental growth of the affected individuals. Most people with infertility experience a lot of stigma and discrimination.
“I appeal to them to go and work hard during the training; they should take an advantage of this training to create a network for technical consultations with fellow experts in the field,”Namarika said.
Speaking on behalf of the 15 awardees, Dr Taurai Chitseko Khitinji promised to work hard and acquire more knowledge for the betterment of health sector in the country.
She cited the issue of cancer, diabetes and infertility as some of the areas which needs more information by medical personnel’s if the country is to deal with them.
“We are medical personnel’s coming from different levels and this scholarship is very important.India is one of the countries which is doing good in ending different diseases and we believe if we go there we will acquire necessary knowledge from experts which will also benefit the country at large,”Chitseko said.
Merck Foundation is expected to train the awardees in the fields of fertility, cancer, diabetes management, oncology and embryology as one way of improving the health sector in the country.
