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Field Report: Our Nursing and Midwifery College Project in Southern Sudan

May 03, 2011 - South Sudan

As our project in Southern Sudan, the Juba College of Nursing and Midwifery completes its First Quarter of 2011, we are proud that the College is continuing its program with the welcome support of all the partners within the Southern Sudan Government, Ministry of Health, United Nations (UNFPA and UNDP) and all other supporting NGO’s. After the tense but successful independence referendum was passed in January, the teachers and students were able to return to the College and continue with the second semester of their respective programs.

A full report has been published to our website here, some of the highlights are below:

photo: The first class of Nursing and Midwifery students at JCONAM

The college successfully re-opened on the 15th of January after the referendum period with all 39 students reporting by mid-February. This is owed to the fact that the students are distributed within the 10 states which are quite a distance from Central Equatoria State where the college is located. They completed their foundation courses and began their clinical sessions in mid-February. The students are currently in their 7th week of practical sessions and will resume classroom lessons in on the first week of May whereby they will be split into nursing and midwifery.
With the support of the Ministry of Health, Department of Nursing and Midwifery, the college was able to identify six clinical mentors at the Juba Teaching Hospital and four clinical mentors from Al Sabaa Hospital. The clinical mentors’ major tasks are to instruct, supervise, monitor, assist and mentor the students to implement the course content outlined in the curricula. The students are currently placed at the Juba Teaching Hospital’s medical, surgical and pediatric ward whereby they are on weekly rotation among these three wards. They are also accompanied by their tutors who support the clinical mentors.
The Department of Nursing and Midwifery, Ministry of Health, college tutors and project management have developed a draft document outlining clinical objectives to be used by the students during their clinical sessions. The objectives form a part of the course content to be implemented by the students during their practical sessions and a basis of evaluation of their work by the clinical mentors and tutors. The project management is currently organizing a workshop that will invite the Ministry of Health, clinical mentors, tutors and several other stakeholders to endorse the document to form part of the course content.
The college library was further boosted in February when it received a donation of 187 books, 37 DVDs and CDs, journals and other teaching aids in both nursing and midwifery from the British Medical Association (BMA). In addition, in March RMF, with the help of a generous donation from The Dillon Henry Foundation, provided 87 nursing and midwifery books that are to be used as classroom reference books by the students. Both donations were highly appreciated by the principal and the Ministry of Health as the college hardly had any reference material.