The ambitious goal would increase the country’s healthcare workforce by nearly 40 percent but still fall short of WHO recommendations.

The Angolan Ministry of Health (MINSA) has announced a plan to transform healthcare in Angola by training 38,000 healthcare professionals, according to reports.

The training will cover healthcare professionals at every level, including doctors (3,000), specialist nurses (4,000), diagnostic and therapeutic technicians (3,000), nursing technicians (9,000), information technology specialists (1,000), as well as hospital support (9,000) and general workers (9,000).

The total healthcare workforce in Angola, currently around 96,000 people, will increase by nearly 40 percent under the new plan.

The World Health Organization recommends one doctor per 1,000 inhabitants, a metric Angola falls well short of with only 8,000 doctors for a population of 34.5 million.

The 3,000 doctors trained under the new plan are still insufficient to meet this metric, but will nevertheless bolster MINSA’s aim of improving the performance of primary and secondary health units and expanding universal primary healthcare coverage.

Angola’s national health system comprises around 2,000 units, including central hospitals (8), provincial or general hospitals (32), municipal hospitals and health centres (228), and health posts (1,453).