Health workers trained to combat maternal and infant deaths

By Francis Emorut & John Agaba

The education minister Jessica Alupo has lauded the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Examination Board for channeling out 3412 health workers to deliver health services in the country and abroad.

She said nurses and midwives are on high demand in the region and further across the borders.

The minister said this during the release of results for the nurses and midwives in 2013 academic year at the board’s offices in Ntinda, a Kampala suburb on Friday.

 “I commend you for producing another cohort of nurses and midwives to serve in the regional hospitals and for maintaining high quality standards,” she told board members and health professionals.

The newly trained health workers are expected to combat the high maternal and child mortality rates.

In her call, Alupo told pushed the youth to join the profession of midwifery to reduce maternal and infants’ deaths in the country.

While releasing the results, the executive secretary of Uganda Nurses and Midwives Examination Board Helen Mukakarisa noted that there was a decline in the 2013 academic performance compared to the previous year.

The enrolment also declined as there were 2691 candidates compared to 3412 in 2013.

On a whole, 2207 candidates passed, indicating an 88.3% pass rate compared to 1596 candidates in 2012 with 89.9% at certificate level.

“The candidates for November 2013 recorded a slight decline of 1.6% in performance,” Mukakarisa said.

Performance for diploma candidates improved by 5.4%. In 2013, 845 candidates passed, representing 93% while 803 passed in 2012 indicating 87.6%.

The secretary blamed the poorer performance on inadequate teaching materials, a high tutor-students ratio, lack of infrastructure and in adequate supervision.

The board chairman Prof. Wilton Kezala appealed to the ministry of education to lift the ban of recruitment of new tutors so as to solve the problem of high tutor student ratio.

He asked the ministry to expedite the review of the curriculum to suit the current global standards.

The function was attended by the two state ministers of primary and high education Kamanda Batarigaya and Christom Muyingo respectively.