State House officials, US professor discuss job opportunities in America

Officials from State House have held discussions with a top American university over the possibility of recruiting Ugandans to work as nurses in the United States, where there is a shortage of about 100,000 nurses.

The team from State House which was led by the Senior Presidential Advisor and head of the Diaspora Unit, Mohammed Bagonza, met with Kennesaw State University Dean, Dr Monica Swahn, and other leaders of a local organisation, Uganda Youth Development Link (UYDL) in Kampala recently.

Dr Swahn is partnering with UYDL to provide services such as rehabilitation of victims of sexual exploitation, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as equipping girls and women with skills to become job creators.

During the meeting, Dr Swahn, a trained epidemiologist, said she had studied diseases and populations in the US, and had discovered a “nursing crisis” in the US.

“It is a crisis. We need nurses. So I don’t have an idea exactly yet, but I’m wondering if there is a way we could partner by strengthening nursing training here potentially so that there will be benefit to Ugandans and the nurses here,” she said.

“But also, see if there would be a path to invite some of those nurses to go to the US. That could be a huge capacity and training programme here,” she added.

The official who is currently working as lead social researcher at UYDEL said she had had preliminary conversation with authorities at Makerere University about the same topic where both countries could have “a win-win against strengthening capacity…even updating some of the technology that might not be available here”.

“We have at least 100,000 shortages right now, about 25,000 even just in the State of Georgia and probably a million nurses short by the end of the decade,” the Professor of Health Promotion and Physical Education said.

Mr Bagonza hailed Dr Swahn and UYDEL for engaging more than q300 young women in vocational skills training.

“You are complementing government efforts and supporting our National Development Plans. We request that you put in more energy so that we are able to achieve much more,” he said.

We still have a lot of work to do. We have skilled so many Ugandans so far but how do we proceed? How do we support them in terms of starting up small scale industries? The President is always ready to support such an initiative which is helping the people,” Bagonza added.

According to the Senior Presidential Advisor, currently Uganda does not have any agreements with the US to export labour there.

“This will be discussed with the President because we already have more than enough trained nurses who can take up that opportunity,” Bagonza who was accompanied by his Deputy Henry Wabyona and legal advisor Andrew Kibumba said.