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Shisong, Cameroon
Training the next generation of Cameroon's health professionals
An education tailored for healthcare challenges
Cameroon’s healthcare system faces challenges on nearly every front. The country has an extreme shortage of doctors, understaffed and under-equipped facilities, and has very high rates of infant mortality and infectious disease. These problems are exacerbated by the government’s low levels of spending on healthcare.
Charities, non-governmental organisations, and religious groups provide much of Cameroon’s healthcare infrastructure, with the Catholic Church providing about a third of faith-based healthcare. The Tertiary Sisters are the largest Catholic order operating in the country.
The Tertiary Sisters’ Catholic School of Health Sciences, Shisong (CSHS), is one of the country’s premier nursing and health science schools, with programs calibrated to the unique needs of Cameroon.
Rigorous three- and four-year programs in nursing and midwifery produce graduates who staff the frontlines of Cameroon’s hospitals and clinics in cities and underserved rural areas.
CSHS, like all of our facilities in Cameroon, receives little funding from government and NGO sources. More than 90% of our operations are funded by donors.
If you are in a position to make a donation, we would be very grateful for your gift, and will put it to immediate good use.
- 500 students enrolled
- 185 graduates annually
- Programs in nursing, midwifery, and laboratory technology
- Many graduates practice in severely underserved rural areas
A future on the frontlines
In a country beset by a chronic shortage of doctors, nurses and paraprofessionals are often the only caregivers patients encounter.
CSHS’s programs train graduates to work in a system where they are expected to be the primary caregiver.
Nursing students are trained in traditional nursing skills, but also to provide frontline care in the absence of doctors. Special attention is paid to the identification and treatment of infectious diseases.
Students at CSHS intern at St. Elizabeth Catholic General Hospital, also operated by the Tertiary Sisters. Under nurses and doctors, they gain experience working with patients and receive hands-on training working with modern medical and laboratory equipment.
CSHS was featured in an August 2023 article in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Read it now!
Toward a generation of healthier children –– and mothers
Cameroon’s staggeringly high infant-mortality rate, 50 times that of the European Union, is the target of CSHS’s midwifery program. Here students are trained to guide mothers from the beginning stages of pregnancy through infancy.
Practical courses on childbirth, disease screening, and care of newborns is augmented with training on meeting the unique needs of Cameroon’s underserved expectant mothers.
Because health literacy is a persistent challenge in Cameroon, a key part of the midwifery program is health education. Students are trained to teach expectant mothers about maternal nutrition, and physical and self-care.
Graduates on the ground
CSHS graduates are among the best-qualified in Cameroon. While many graduates have served in prestigious leadership posts at hospitals and laboratories, it is the graduates who go on to jobs in villages and rural areas who make often make the biggest difference in people’s lives.
Community, friendship, and faith
Students put in three years of long days and nights of study and training. But CSHS is more than a school. It’s a residential community guided by the principles of our Catholic faith.
A typical day begins with a morning prayer, followed by a full day of classes or practical training. Sacraments are offered regularly.
How you can help
Healthcare in Cameroon is both expensive and severely underfunded.
The Catholic School of Health Sciences, like all of our facilities in Cameroon, receives little funding from government and NGO sources.
Student tuition is unaffordable for a large number of our students. 30% of our students pass their entrance exams but are unable to afford tuition fees. Their education is funded entirely by donors.
If you are able to make a donation to our school, regardless of the amount, we will put it to immediate good use.