Globally, health is of great concern particularly, the burden of disease which comes in two-fold; firstly, the non-communicable diseases‘ and secondly, infectious diseases, malnutrition and complications of childbirth. The focus of any health system should be to reduce the disease burden, improve the populations‘ life expectancy and mitigate the effects of vicious cycle of poverty. East Africa, just like other developing regions, is focused on containing infectious diseases, malnutrition and on reducing maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality though with little success.
Training of highly skilled human resource is one of the key areas to be considered towards realization of improved health. Following the development of society and technology and disease burden, there is a growing need of highly skilled nursing care providers.
This Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Egerton University is aimed at training highly skilled Nursing professionals to enhance Nursing care, and contribute to attainment of Millennium development goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 of Kenya.
The Health care sector in Kenya today faces the challenges of a developing society and technology, escalation of non-communicable diseases (including emerging and re-emerging diseases), the still lingering infectious diseases, malnutrition and health problems associated with childbirth . One of the strategies to alleviate this problem is have a well trained human resource pool with adequate skills to combat these challenges.
According to International Center for Human Resource in Nursing, Kenya has a great shortage of nurses; whereby the Kenya‘s ratio is one (1) nurse to1345 population compared to the ideal standard ratio of 1 nurse to 250 population with barelyover a thousand nursing degree holders currently in the market.
Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduates are competently trained clinical practitioners, lead educators, polished health researcher, critical thinkers and change agents who will greatly contribute to reducing global disease burden, maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.