Training New Doctors in Mozambique. A Sustainable International Aid Health Program

Abstract

The collaborative project between the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the public University of Mozambique, UniZambeze, aims to strengthen the institutional and training capacities of its Faculty of Medicine located in Tete to provide new medical graduates. The essence of the program, training doctors, has the objective of improving the healthcare system and making it sustainable for the integration of new graduates into the staff of the faculty. In this work, we determine the cost of education for a new doctor and we evaluate the social benefit of the program in terms of the human capital. The program has led to the training of 199 new doctors in the 11 years of operation and is leading the way for 100 more in the next four years. The incorporation of some of them into the faculty’s staff will generate new doctor graduates in the near future with a cost below 6000 EUR each in normal circumstances. These results can help to determine how much traditional international aid healthcare programs can save when investing in the education of new doctors. This program is an alternative policy for the international aid financing budgets of donor countries. Supporting teachers and native doctors in the future with private and public patronage programs can raise the efficiency per EUR spent.