Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/tanzanian-doctor-shortage-spurs-training-innovation Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript In the first installment of a three-part series on health care challenges in the east African nation of Tanzania, Ray Suarez reports on how health officials there have had to come up with new training efforts in order to meet the nation's medical needs. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, to our Global Health Unit, with the first in a three-part series about Tanzania and its efforts to address the deep medical problems afflicting that East African nation. Tonight, Ray Suarez looks at the shortage of doctors. RAY SUAREZ: In a dusty rural hospital in northern Tanzania, a young woman requires emergency surgery. A ruptured appendix is suspected, but Jibai Mukome is alarmed when he slices into 27-year-old Rahel Rubin's abdomen and finds a widespread toxic infection. JIBAI MUKOME: It was life threatening because the end result is septicemia. Septicemia is a killing situation. Septicemia is the spreading of the bacteria through the bloodstream, so the end result is death, obviously. RAY SUAREZ: This patient's heart was failing before surgery. This impoverished hospital had only the crudest operating room tools. It's a wonder this surgery was a success. What's more amazing: Jibai Mukome is not a medical doctor. He's Tanzania's version of a physician's assistant. JIBAI MUKOME: It was a very difficult procedure. That's why I'm sweating, you know? Difficult, yes, very, very difficult procedure. RAY SUAREZ: In fact, at this crowded district hospital in Kahama, Tanzania, where patients double and even triple up on beds, there's only one fully trained physician for a population of 800,000. He's Dr. Leonard Subi, and he works mainly as an administrator. DR. LEONARD SUBI: For a medical doctor like me…the districts, I'm alone. I'm alone in my district. RAY SUAREZ: Tanzania's terribly short of doctors to treat its more than 40 million people, and the government has been working hard to get trained medical personnel even in the smallest communities. But with Kahama's vast population base, the hospital must make due by relying on assistant medical officers, like Jibai Mukome, to fill the gap. DR. LEONARD SUBI: This assistant medical officers, medical officers, they are doing other work which should be done by specialists.DR. DAVID MWAKYUSA, minister of health, Tanzania: This we call task-shifting. Someone who is not a doctor doing a job of a doctor. And that is what has kept us alive.