Health institutes challenged to match the appetite for technology

The medical health institutes in the country have been urged to develop new modules to meet the needs of the advancing technology.

Experts from the ministry are expected to enrol in free courses at the Public Health Institute to build the capacities of medics by providing better skills and knowledge for the workers of the ministry.

Okach Eliza Imoya, a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the national ministry of the health department on reproductive health, has called on the institute to develop new courses to compete internationally in technology given its development.

“As we advance in technology, we need this training so that we can be able to compete or move at the same pace with other developing countries,” she said.

Imoya being one of the two ladies among the 26 undergoing training on data management said the course will improve her work after being left out of many training sessions that have been conducted at the ministry.

She said as a monitoring evaluation officer, she has been experiencing challenges such as low data flow from the county level.

“In my department, I deal directly with data which comes from county to state facilities and the training will help us to do enough. So, having aboard people from those facilities who are sharing with us data is a great initiative to improving my work at the ministry,” she added.

Dr. Gordon Angok, the Director of the Public Health Institute, revealed that they started the initiative in 2019 as paperwork and intend to target the employees of the ministry, line ministries and the large health sector at large.

He said currently there are only 52 personnel in training.  

Dr. Gordon added that among courses provided at the institution are the three thematic areas of leadership management, governance and data management.

However, he said the only great challenge facing them currently is the law which he said their legal team is working on.

“The legal part is still in the process, we submitted the legal framework to the ministry of justice to be passed as a bill and for six months now the bill has not been prioritized for tabling,” he stressed.

NPHIs are national-level institutions that are supposed to lead and coordinate public health functions, including surveillance, emergency preparedness and response, public health research and public health workforce development.

However, NPHIs are expected to be science-based organisations with key attributes that relate to how they function. These key attributes include a commitment to transparency and accountability, the use of evidence for decision making.

Mary Denis, the director of health education and promotion and the lead for risk communication and engagement at the ministry of health said the training will equip her with leadership opportunities.

“I am already doing the work of the leader but I need to have more knowledge and skills, maybe I would have the knowledge but the training will help me provide the skills to manage my subordinates,” she revealed.

Mary believes since learning is a continuous process the presence of the institute will help South Sudan to improve the skills of health practitioners within the ministry.  

“Well this institute is building the skills and knowledge for the human resource for health because now health has become very important all over the world not only in South Sudan, we are dealing with many diseases emerging and reemerging diseases. We need to have these skills for our professionals to tackle such situations and be more effective leaders and managers,” she remarked. 

Dr. Mary who is currently undergoing leadership, governance and management training, said this skill will help them to get more effective leaders and managers. She also added that if she finishes this course she may need to enrol in data management skills.

The ministry of health has recently come under serious leadership challenges following the changes in the ministry as well as Juba teaching Hospital.

Atem Mayen David, a Public Health specialist at the emergency operation Centre [EOC], says he decided to take leadership training because his name fell under leadership training since he works in the managerial part. This had made it easy for him to manage his counterparts.

Atem said he would love to see the training taken up to the 10 states of South Sudan in the future.

“I love to see the institute grow to reach all the 10 states and counties, this will help us ease work and be able to monitor surveillance” he added.

He revealed that during the genesis of COVID-19, they were faced with a challenge at the EOC when the patients increased forcing the institute to call back all those in the ministry in case of an emergency.

He also revealed that due to poor payment many workers leave for better pasture making it difficult for them at the ministry. He however called on the government to maintain the workers for better outputs.

“We have competent staff but because there is no proper motivation for our staff, we cannot stop them from looking for a better job,’’ he noted.

In November 2020, the former undersecretary for the ministry of health, Dr Mayen Achiek Machut, said the medical practitioners are being taken away by organisations, hence, leaving the ministry without enough human resources.

He said fresh graduates should undergo intensive training at the ministry before they are disposed of.

 He advised organizations to always get medical human resources from the ministry, saying poor pay has been the main challenge in the ministry.

Expert speaks out

Most institutions die out due to lack of sustainability, but according to the project director of Intra-Health, Dr. Alfred Okirya, an international organization overseeing the institute says they have done what is necessary to make the institution continue to run. 

 “We have secured funds from the America Centre for disease control [CDC], African Union and African CDC have started showing interest in supporting this institution. We want to link up with universities such as the University of Juba and the Upper Nile University as human resources to make the institution run,” he noted.

He noted that intra-health has been supporting the institute with strategic information and developing the legal framework a critical component at the institute since 2019.

Okirya further pointed out that the courses offered are carefully selected about the key pillars of workforce development and developing the capacities of workers at all levels of data management, leadership management and governance.

“Management is a key to leading and delivering services to the people, and data will help the leaders make informed decisions. There are several courses for the institute but we have prioritized the two for now,” he emphasised.