Walter Wilson Nana
Buea, Cameroon
The University of Buea, UB, is growing and the need for updated infrastructure and necessary human resources are pressing. At the inaugural ceremony of the teaching laboratory block of the Faculty of Health Sciences, UB, Wednesday, October 23 2013 by the Minister of Higher Education, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo, UB’s Vice Chancellor, VC, Dr Nalova Lyonga, enumerated some urgent needs for the blooming Faculty of Health Sciences.
While expressing gratitude to the Ministry of Higher Education for doing so many things for UB, Nalova mentioned that the fast growing Faculty of Health Sciences will need a teaching hospital, a large amphitheatre, the recruitment of thirty new lecturers and a fence to protect the campus.
Prof Fame Ndongo cuts the ribbon leading into the new teaching laboratory block of the faculty of health science
She will note that the new structures of the Faculty of Health Sciences has come to fruition thanks to the special investment fund of the government of Cameroon, adding that the former Alliance Franco-Camerounaise, AFC, campus in Buea has been handed over to UB by the government of Cameroon to facilitate the institution’s expansion programme.
The UB VC saw in the Faculty of Health Sciences an institution that has come to generate data, contribute to health reforms in and out of Cameroon, solve
Partial view of the new teaching laboratory block of the Faculty of Health Sciences
health problems for a country like Cameroon that needs a healthy work force and address issues of the MDGs numbers 4, 5 and 6.
While reiterating that the newfound structure has come to transform research in biomedical sciences in the Central African Region and across the world, Nalova said it is an opportunity for UB and the University of Yaoundé I to reinforce their natural partnership and compete for international grants.
Minister of Higher Education, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo (Dark suit), UB’s Vice Chancellor, VC, Dr Nalova Lyonga (Gold dress)
She will entreat her colleagues not to go to sleep and continue to ask the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, to do more for the Faculty of Health Sciences and UB in general.
Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences, Prof. Marcellin Ngowe Ngowe corroborated the views of his VC, while expressing thanks to the government of Cameroon via the Ministry of Higher Education for making higher education a priority in the country.
He said the medical doctors, the nurses
UB VC Dr Nalova Lyonga, delivering her speech at the inaugural ceremony
who have graduated from the faculty are contributing to the fight against poverty and taking Cameroon forward in the health sector. Ngowe added that their objective is to make the faculty a centre for health excellence and to seek partnerships with other health institutions across the world.
The Faculty of Health Sciences, which started in 1993, currently has a student and staff population of 800 persons. The faculty has a medical library, a website,
Some students of the Faculty of Health Sciences, UB
internet on campus, biotechnology complex, teaching block 1 and 2 respectively.
It was also an opportunity for the Dean to pay gratitude to distinguished Professors Gottlieb Lobe Monekosso and Boniface Nasah for being there at the beginning to see the Faculty of Health Sciences take off in style.
Prof. Fame Ndongo will say in his inaugural statement that UB is the pride of academia in the Ministry and Cameroon in general, noting that new infrastructure constitutes the indicators of Cameroon’s emergence.
He explained that in the wake of inadequate health practitioners in the country, the Faculty of Health Sciences has come to fill a gap and to subsequently reduce the 1 doctor to 3000 patients to 1 doctor to 1000 patients soonest.
A reassuring Fame Ndongo noted that the government has engaged a vast project to develop the health sector in the country by opening a Faculty of Pharmacology in the University of Douala, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences in University of Yaoundé I and Faculties of Health Sciences in the University of Buea and University of Bamenda respectively.
He mentioned that the UB Faculty of Health Sciences, designed as a pentagon structure of five wings (two done with already), will continue, saying; “there will always be money from the state to do it.”
So far, the two wings of the UB Faculty of Health Sciences have been constructed by the Buea-based construction company, WAGA and architectural design done by Victor Techniks.
