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Graduation of South African doctors trained in Cuba
PRETORIA, July 10.—The first
group of 22 Doctors of Medicine, South Africans
trained in Cuba, graduated today in this city,
according to a source from the Ministry of Health.
The new professionals completed
their five-year course and did their internship and
examinations in South Africa.
The members of this group have to
work in community service for one year, stated
Charity Bhengu, Ministry spokesperson.
“As part of the scholarship
agreement, these doctors will be working in areas
with few services and will stay in the public sector
for at least five years,” she noted.
These professionals were selected
from the whole nation to study in Cuba on the basis
of a bilateral cooperation agreement signed in 1995
after the establishment of a democratic South
Africa.
“Many of them would not be
doctors today given the challenges of admission and
the fees that students from poor communities have to
take on,” she commented.
In addition to offering those
students training, Cuba has also been sending
doctors to this, the southernmost nation on the
continent, who have mostly worked in areas with
difficult conditions and often isolated from the
main urban centers.
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