At least 165 health students on Friday graduated from the Torit Health Science Institute in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria State.
The graduates were awarded diploma certificates in various disciplines including 50 students in clinical sciences, 38 in midwifery, 27 in nursing, 24 in laboratory sciences, and 26 in pharmacy.
This is the third batch of students to graduate from the institute since its establishment in 2015.
Isaac Nimeri John, the principal of Torit Health Science Institute, said this was the largest batch to graduate since the institute’s inception.
“Today (Friday), we are graduating 165. In the first batch, we graduated 85 students and in the second batch we were able to graduate 112 students,” he revealed. “We will have another group that will be finishing in November so we have prepared for the national examinations and the number is expected to be more than this.”
Aya Joyce Oteka, a graduate of midwifery, said she was ready to fight the high mortality rate among mothers during birth which she attributed to unprofessional midwives in the State.
“I joined midwifery because I saw many mothers dying during childbirth in residential areas because there are no well-trained midwives. That is what motivated me to join the profession so that I can help the nation,” she said. “With this diploma of mine, my focus is to save lives and we have to reduce the maternal mortality rate.”
Meanwhile, a graduate of nursing, Abu John William, said attaining the diploma has been his long-awaited dream and that he can now offer health services to the communities.
On his part, Lodae Pascal, the health minister in Eastern Equatoria State, appreciated development partners for supporting the institute and urged the graduates to improve community health.
“Today we have seen the great achievement of these 165 students. We will still need to engage our partners because in the beginning, UNFPA and UNMISS gave us a lot of support and many partners and volunteers contributed,” he said. “We need to push this idea ahead so that the institute can train more of these (health) cadres. For the graduates, if you just learn and you do not contribute, we will just ask you to resign and go home.”
Meanwhile, the acting governor, Jildo Abala Remmy who is the state’s roads minister, told the graduates to commit to transforming the lives of the people and said the government is committed to supporting health institutions.
“The state government will do its level best to address some of them if not all the problems in the health sector and I am appealing to our communities to respect, trust, love, unite and have peaceful co-existence amongst one another,” he said.