‘For there to be high-quality hospital services and comprehensive community- based systems it is important for practitioners to engage in new roles and develop new skills,” said Lucy Alexander, academic programme coordinator and materials developer at the University of the Western Cape’s school of public health.
To this end the school offers a master’s in public health (MPH) programme aimed at managers in the health department and healthcare organisations, such as hospitals, clinics and NGOs.
Alexander said the programme was established in line with new international thinking on public health training. It highlights health sector reform and decentralisation, community participation and globalisation of health concerns.
The shift in thinking is towards a primary healthcare-based health system that requires more ‘managers, planners and academics who are competent, skilled and have a good understanding of the principles and practices of primary healthcare and public health,” Alexander said.
UWC’s school of public health was established in 1993, under the leadership of Professor David Sanders, to help transform the health sector from a predominately curative, hospital service to a high-quality, comprehensive, community-based, participatory and equitable system.
The school aims to assist policymakers and health planners whose research is committed to addressing equity, social injustice and human dignity.
The school’s programme is offered at a distance to ensure that health professionals are able to maintain their professional work while studying. ‘New strategies have to be found to bring training opportunities not only to health workers, but also to train them while in post, using their own work situation as the practical arena in which to implement the theoretical concepts
mastered,” Sanders said in 2002.
The MPH aims to equip practitioners to put them in leading roles in the transformation of health and social services. The course will also help increase graduates’ potential to be involved in research projects at local management level as well as in policy processing and evaluation projects.
The programme will interest those who want to ‘understand the causes of the health or poor health of populations and to act on this understanding”, Alexander said.
Applicants should have at least a four-year degree and three to five years of experience in a relevant field. Through the programme they will be exposed to training in the primary health care approach and public health strategies in epidemiology, health promotion and health management.
For more information, contact Janine Kader at [email protected] or call the UWC school of public health, 021 959 2591/2809.
Tania Pehl is a first-year journalism student at Rhodes University and recently completed a week’s internship at the Mail & Guardian