ALVIN CHIINGA, Lusaka
AT A time COVID-19 is still a menace to society, training of health care workers remains cardinal in Zambia, especially frontline personnel such as nurses and clinical officers. Experts say there is still a huge deficit of workers in the country’s health sector which needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Some local investors saw this lapse some years back and took remedial measures by investing in training facilities for health care workers. The first private training school for medical personnel in Zambia has over the years been producing health care providers to complement public health training institutions. Over 3,000 students have walked through the corridors of Lusaka Institute of Applied Sciences (LIAS) and are serving in various health facilities across the country. LIAS started operating in 2005 after training of health personnel was liberalised to give leeway to private financiers who wanted to invest in this sector to do so. Institute proprietor and director Brighton Chellah says what started as a dream has come to pass. Since 2005, several students have been graduating yearly save for 2019 and 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. “The institute was established in 2005, and it was registered under the General Nursing Council. It is the first private college training health workers in the country,” Mr Chellah says.
At the beginning, there were a number of challenges when Government announced the opening of private colleges in the health sector in 1997. The floor was opened for CLICK TO READ MORE