Administrative challenges facing the Cuban-South African medical collaboration at the University of KwaZulu-Natal

Abstract The Cuban-South African medical collaboration is a government initiative that started in the early nineties to supplement the shortage of doctors in the country. The scarcity of medical doctors especially in remote and rural locations has an impact on the achievement of health related outcomes for universal health coverage in South Africa. Previous studies in this area have focused on the competencies (Motala, 2014), cost effectiveness (Mqadi, 2015) and appropriateness of the training of South African students in Cuba and in most cases, has been from the perspective of the students in the programme (Motala & van Wyk, 2016). The aim of this study was to identify the challenges facing the Cuban-South African medical collaboration at programme-level at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Students from the Cuban cohort have to return to a South African medical university to complete their training and register with the Health Professions Council of South Africa in order to practice as a doctor. A qualitative exploratory study was conducted using the interpretive epistemology approach to highlight the challenges facing programme administrators at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The collection of data was done using semi-structured interviews from participants selected from the Nelson R Mandela School of Clinical Medicine, UKZN. Purposive snowball sampling was implemented to select the key personnel employed to administer and manage the Cuban collaboration programme. Data was analysed using thematic analysis and organised on Nvivo to highlight important themes in the study. Challenges related to administration, logistics, language, connectivity and Covid-19 issues were discovered to be a major impediment to the programme’s smooth operation. Recommendations to address the challenges should assist in improving the overall experience for cohort students who are the key role players for human resources for health, health reforms and primary health care in South Africa.