Assistant nurses, who were reported to have fake certificates were neither trained nor employed at the Bugando Medical Centre. It was erroneously reported a fortnight ago that some assistant nurses employed by the centre were found to have counterfeit certificates.
But Prof Charles Majinge, the Bugando Medical Centre director general, said the centre had no fake nurses because it had a rigorous recruiting process to ensure that only qualified medical personnel with genuine certificates are employed.
“As a medical centre we also train medical personnel, but we only train nursing officers and assistant nursing officers, from diploma to degree levels. We do not train assistant nurses,” Prof Majinge told The Citizen by telephone. Bugando, which has 350 nursing and assistant nursing officers working at various departments, also does not employ assistant nurses.
Bugando Medical Centre serves as the tertiary referral hospital for the people of the Lake and Western regions of the country. It was built by the Catholic Church and was officially opened in December 1971. The hospital was nationalised and administered by the Tanzanian government from 1971 to 1985. The centre’s control was returned to the Tanzania Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Tanzania in 1985. Since its inception, BMC personnel have shown an unwavering commitment to their patients.
This article originally appeared on thecitizen