The College of Nursing at Sultan Qaboos University and Starcare Hospital, Muscat signed a cooperation agreement that will help both organisations to collaborate in nursing training and research. The partnership covers five key areas of co-operation that include continuous nursing education and professional development of nurses, collaborative research, third party audit facilitation, competency assessments and community nursing adoption.
The signing ceremony was held on 25 September 2018 at the College of Nursing under the patronage of H.H. Dr. Mona bint Fahad Al-Said, Assistant Vice Chancellor for International Cooperation at Sultan Qaboos University. The agreement was signed by Dr. Omar Al Rawajfah, Dean of the College of Nursing, and Dr. Sadik Kodakat, Founder and Chairman of Starcare Hospital Group. The signing ceremony was attended by officials representing the two organizations.
The program started with the opening remarks by Dr. Huda Al Noumani, Assistant Dean of Training and Community Service College of Nursing. “Developing an active community nursing programme is one of the aims of this agreement. Community nurses in developed nations are now playing a key role in preventing avoidable hospital admissions by taking care to where people live. A lot can be done if both private and public sector can work together to achieve this” Dr. Huda Al Noumani said. This was followed by a brief note on the agreement by Dr. Omar Al Rawajfah. Dr Sadik Kodakat shared his views on the commitment of Starcare Hospital towards this strategic alignment with Sultan Qaboos University College of Nursing.
Commenting on how this alignment would benefit the country, Dr Sadik Kodakat, said, “Good nursing is at the core of all what we do in healthcare field. Naturally, developing good nursing training systems is vital for maintaining high quality hospitals, Medical centres and even community care programmes. At Starcare, we are pleased to be chosen as the private Hospital partner for Sultan Qaboos University College of Nursing. The aim is to pool resources from both sides and develop better and more effective training, research and quality assurance systems. Since Starcare Hospital has been pioneering various quality systems and accreditations in Oman, this will be a natural extension of what we do routinely. Having an environment of training, assessing, auditing and researching will keep our professionals at the cutting edge of knowledge, which I am sure will invariably help our patients and our clinical results”.
“It is expected that both Starcare and the College of Nursing would benefit through this collaboration significantly bringing positive impact to the community of Oman. Together, we look forward to setting standards and be an example to all sectors by working together, to achieve more. Public Private Partnership in various levels will be a welcome change in the future of Healthcare in Oman” said Dr Askar Kukkadi, Senior Consultant Paediatrician and Managing Director of Starcare Oman.
Marianna Kotze, Group Chief Nursing Officer for Oman said, “Starcare is one of the first private Hospitals in the country to have established a dedicated Quality department. Similarly, we are developing nurse training and assessment departments to enhance our in house skills as well as bring more Omanis into the profession. We are very happy to be closely working with SQU College of Nursing to share knowledge and resources to realise this vision, she said”.