SA MEDICAL STUDENT DIES IN CUBA

THE hopes of a tiny Northern Province village died last week when the hamlet’s star student drowned while studying medicine in Cuba. Thabo Skhosana (20) was considered Glen Cowie village’s goodwill ambassador and was the first local resident to ever go abroad. Almost the entire village turned out for his emotional funeral and memorial service near Jane Furse on Sunday. Skhosana drowned on August 22 while swimming in a pool at the St Spiritus Medical Institute in St Spiritus where he was in his second year of studying towards a medical degree. He was part of a group of 11 students from the Northern Province who were sent to Cuba in September 1999 to learn medicine and then return home to serve South African hospitals as community service doctors. – African Eye News Service