The Vista campus of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University could soon boast a medical facility that would serve the area between East London and George.

The university announced on Friday it would investigate the feasibility of re-locating its health sciences faculty to Vista, a move that could lead to the establishment of a fully-fledged medical faculty linked to Dora Nginza Hospital.

There is currently no medical faculty between Mthatha and Cape Town and such a tertiary institution would be able to serve an area stretching from East London to the Garden Route.

The university’s vice-chancellor Rolf Stumpf and council chairman Ronnie Pillay are to hold discussions with provincial and municipal stakeholders soon to determine whether relocating the health sciences faculty “could facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship between the NMMU, the Eastern Cape Province and the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality in respect of primary health care”.

Stumpf said on Friday that the feasibility study flowed from the announcement by education minister Naledi Pandor that “substantial funding has been set aside from 2006 to 2008 for higher education institutions that incorporated Vista campuses, to ensure that these campuses can be appropriately developed and upgraded”.

To access these funds, the university will have to prepare a three-year development plan for the Vista campus, to be submitted to the minister by the end of March.

The announcement has been welcomed by government and health officials, who say it will help attract senior medical professionals to the region, building the local skills base.

Stumpf stressed that the extent of funding made available to the NMMU for the development of its Vista campus would depend to a large extent on the quality of its proposal and it was therefore “crucial that we submit a compelling, visionary and well-researched project proposal”.

He said it was against this background that he had been given a mandate to re-open the investigation into which activities should be allocated to Vista.
He emphasised that the decision to relocate the education faculty to Vista had not been rescinded.

Stumpf said the university council’s executive committee had asked him to convene a project team to analyse the feasibility of re-locating the health sciences faculty to Vista.

“This is part of a longer-term strategic vision of forging a partnership with the Eastern Cape province and the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality in respect of the provision of accessible, high-quality health care education and training in the metro on the Vista campus, given its close proximity to the Dora Nginza Hospital,” he said.

“The feasibility analysis and project proposal for the development of the Vista campus will be driven by the Centre for Planning and Institutional Development, in consultation with relevant internal and external stakeholders.”

Stumpf said he was “particularly excited” about the opportunities the additional funding would provide for giving “tangible effect to our vision . . . and making a difference to the broader society that the NMMU is located within.”

Reacting to the news, Mandela Bay Mayor Nceba Faku said yesterday that such a medical faculty would certainly have “definite benefits” for the metro.

But he said there was a need to ensure that any new faculty dovetailed with the skills requirements of the area and the province as a whole in relation to the global economy.

“Any developments at the university should be the product of negotiations with both the public and private sector looking at the strategic projections with regard to skills requirements,” he said.

Cacadu district municipality primary healthcare manager Xoliswa Sandi said that, as Cacadu surrounded Mandela Bay, the district municipality would benefit because of the close proximity.

“Currently we have to send primary healthcare professionals long distances to get trained,” she said.

“By having such a facility close by, these professionals could complete their practical courses in their own environment”.

Port Elizabeth Hospital Complex clinical governance manager Dr Frederick Rank said he believed having a medical school in Mandela Bay was a good idea as it would “help attract senior medical professionals to the region, building our local skills base”.

“Any teaching institution for the medical profession is a good concept,” he said. “In principle I would love to see something like this develop in Port Elizabeth, but I would like to have more detail on the proposal.”

PE Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Percci) president Dave Coffey said it was “a good idea”.

“NMMU is ideally placed to offer this course, as it has a fairly captive market, whereas other cities in the region are faced with a number of institutions competing with each other for dominance.”