Category: Health

{{A visiting group of American doctors are in the country to treat some patients at King Faisal Hospital. The doctors will visit several patients in different wards where they will be updated on the patients diagnosis.}}

Those found with serious cases may be sponsored to receive treatment abroad if such cases cannot be handled in Rwanda due to the difficulty of the procedures.

The doctors found constantly roaming the halls of the hospitals with warm smiles on their faces are seen talking to patients as the doctors go through their daily routines and checkups.

The doctors are in the country for a few days where each day is spent visiting and determining the seriousness of medical conditions of patients.

After the medical board examines all recent cases of all patients diagnosed visited, the decision will be left to the chairman of the medical referral board that will then start patient transfer proceedings from King Faisal hospital to requested hospitals.

However, patients being sponsored by Rwandan government will not be eligible for treatment abroad– Patients such as those being sponsored by FARG.

The American Doctors are accompanied by a group of photographers.

{{The Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi has cautioned doctors over poor service delivery and customer care citing poor dressing code,bad language, negative attitude at work and general poor management as the major vices that need to be urgently rectified within the Health sector.}}

In a one day meeting that took place at Lemigo Hotel this Friday, Habumuremyi said that the Health sector is sensitive where proper service delivery and customer care must be paramount.

While Doctors looked on quietly in disbelief, the Prime Minister introduced the matter that they had been called for, only to find that it was their poor way of service to innocent and vulnerable citizens.

“Your domain is very sensitive that even the smallest issue can destabilize all citizens and affect other sectors. All health facilities should be where citizens should go and get hope of healing,” Habumuremyi said.

Habumurenyi said that the Doctors’ code of ethics is now at stake due to continued poor services saying that he has received accumulated messages from citizens complaining about poor treatment from doctors including sexual harassment.

“We know you have lots of challenges, dealing with people from those remote areas is not easy despite lack of some facilities. One health center we visited did not have water but it is among the best health centers offering good services,” Habumuremyi said.

“Being unable to have necessary requirements does not permit let say poor hygiene. You can be poor but you can be listed among the most hygienic persons in the community,” Habumurenyi cautioned.

He said proper service delivery and customer care are national interests where all sectors are requested to improve.

Habumurenyi said he had previously toured and talked with professionals from banking sector and Hotels to see how best it can be achieved.

Habumuremyi said that some doctors and nurses have poor attitude at work as well as poor dressing codes where he highlighted King Faisal Hospital a major referral Hospital in the country.

“I met one specialist at King Faisal Hospital wearing Jeans and a casual shirt and snickers, such a dressing code is unacceptable remember you are role model in the society, that puts a threat on your reputation,”He said.

Referring to Rwanda Development Board current survey on service delivery, prime minister said that it was indicated that among four tourists that come in Rwanda only one admit that s/he has recieved good services.

Habumuremyi implored the heads of District hospitals in the country and other relevant medical practitioners to come up with a checklist of standards that will hike service delivery and customer care in the medical fraternity.

The Prime Minister was lauded by Health Minister Dr. Agnes Binagwaho while saying that the problem is not that it so much alarming in the health sector, it is rather the same or even less but in health sector people needing services are very vulnerable.

“We have a national corporate campaign aimed at improving service delivery and customer care to improve the country’s image across all sectors, it is not only in health sector,” Binagwaho said.

“Doctors and nurses are using poor language when attending to patients. Even in our five star accredited hospital King Faisal they have poor language while attending to patients, even delays and we have cases where some people have opted for medical services out of the country, thats money taken away so our hospitals cannot grow,” Binagwaho added.

Binagwaho said that the solution must come from personnel in the sector adding that even though some challenges are beyond their capabilities.

In the recent grenade attacks ambulances on University Hospital CHUK and Kibagabaga District hospital lacked a driver which is one of the sign of poor management that results into poor service delivery and customer care.

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{{Global efforts to eliminate malaria are highly unlikely by the UN target date of 2015 following new research based on modern techniques that has revealed that Malaria actually kills twice as previously assumed for thirty years.}}

The new figure shows that malaria kills 1.2million people annually including babies,older children and adults. This research disqualifies an assumption in data held for 30years about the world’s deadly diseases.

In Africa the contribution of malaria to children’s deaths is higher than had been thought, causing 24% of their deaths in 2008 and not 16% as found by a report by Black and colleagues, whose methodology was used in the World Malaria Report.

The findings from the research have been published today (Friday) reanalysing 30 years of data on Malaria using new techniques.

Children die most. However, a fifth are among those aged 15. 49, 9% are among 50- to 69-year-olds. 6% are in people over 70. A third of all deaths are in adults. In countries outside sub-Saharan Africa, more than 40% of deaths were in adults.

This research also raises urgent questions about the future of the troubled Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, which has provided the money for most of the tools to combat the disease in Africa, such as insecticide-impregnated bed nets and new drugs. The fund is in financial crisis and has had to cancel its next grant-making round.

According to the guardian of UK, the esearch comes from the highly respected Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), based in Seattle, and is published in the Lancet medical journal.

Dr Christopher Murray and colleagues have systematically collected data on deaths from all over the world over a 30-year period, from 1980 to 2010, using new methodologies and inventive ways of measuring mortality in countries where deaths are not conventionally recorded.

The work on malaria is part of a much bigger project which has already led to new estimates of the death rates of women in childbirth and pregnancy and from breast and cervical cancer.

Their figure of 1.2 million deaths for 2010 is nearly double the 655,000 estimated in last year’s World Malaria Report.

The good news is that they have confirmed the downward trend that the World Health Organisation’s report showed, as a result of efforts by donors, aid organisations and governments to tackle the disease.

The bad news is that the decline comes from a much higher peak – deaths hit 1.8 million in 2004, they say. That means the interventions such as better treatment and bed nets are working, but there is much further to go than everybody had assumed.

The study demolishes conventional thinking on malaria – that almost all the deaths are in babies and small children under the age of five. The study found that 42% were in older children and adults.

“You learn in medical school that people exposed to malaria as children develop immunity and rarely die from malaria as adults,” said Murray, IHME director and the study’s lead author. “What we have found in hospital records, death records, surveys and other sources shows that just is not the case.”

{{The Ministry of Health on Thursday provided to 7 hospitals 8 ambulances locally referred to as ‘IMBANGUKIRAGUTABARA’ valued at Frw800 million. }}

This is in line with government program of equipping Health centers and hospitals in the country with ambulances.

Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, the Minister of Health expressed her delight that the ministry is achieving its goals of extending ambulances in each district to help sick people easily access health services without staying long in bed at home.

Among the hospitals which received ambulances include; Masaka in Kicukiro district, Mubilizi in Rusizi district, Remera Rukoma in Kamonyi district, Shyira in Nyabihu district and Mugonero in Karongi district.

During the ceremony there was substitution of an ambulance donated by Vatican (Rome) to Kibeho health center which could be easily damaged by bad roads of the place.

The Ministry substituted it with a new ambulance fitting the terrain on the place.

Apart from taking patients to hospitals, the ambulances also contain first aid materials, sickbed and a place for a physician when giving basic treatment to a patient.

Under this program, the Health Ministry has so far offered 208 ambulances all over the country.

{{The ministry of Health has announced plans for an aggressive sensitization campaign against cancer and other incurable diseases.}}

The permanent secretary in the health Ministry( MINISANTE), Uzziel Ndagijimana, told IGIHE.com that as other diseases like malaria reduce, the incurable ones are on the increase. This is reason why the ministry is going to make much effort in fighting against them.

He said, “The ministry is planning to establish four centers at CHUK, King Faisal and others in charge of fighting against deadly diseases including cancer and make more sensitization to the citizens.”

Though less talked about, cancer is among the top killers of many people in the world for UN indicates that it is expected to kill 84 million from 2005 to 2015 if it is not fought.

Every year 4th February is a world day on the fighting cancer with making its test, thinking about it and ways to fight it. There are three ways the cancer may be cured: surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy.

{{Police in Rusizi district are looking for a nurse identified as Desiré Ngirabacu who is alleged to have killed a patient by the names Alphonse Muhigana by injecting him with an overdose of Peniciline anti-biotic.}}

The nurse disclosed details about the death through her close friend Apolline Uzamukunda who stays at the dispensary’s compound known as Gira Ubuzima located in Rusizi town.

Uzamukunda noted that the nurse gave her keys of the dispensary on 26th January 2012 in the evening something she has done before, then later called her to explain about the death of a patient whom she had locked in one of the dispensary’s rooms.

“When she first gave me the keys she looked uneasy. Later at about 7PM she called me on her cell phone to explain that she had unintentionally injected Muhigana 3 injections of peniciline anti biotic after which the patient reacted weirdly by vomiting and bleeding from his nose and acted as if he was epileptic.”

“She told me after seeing those scary signs she had no doubt that the patient would eventually die. She said she was afraid to face the family of the deceased due to fear of being sued or punished.”

“I think that’s why she ran away. The nurse has been a good person I wonder how she can do such a stupid thing,”she explained.

It is believed that the nurse ran to an undisclosed place since she’s nowhere to be found and neither her best friends know her whereabouts. She can’t be reached on her cell phone anymore.

The deceased was buried on 27th at Karambi cell in Nyanza district.

{{The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed the research findings that suggest use of hormonal contraception drugs may double the risk of acquiring HIV and transmitting it to a partner.}}

It’s against this development that WHO is convening a Technical Consultation of a multi-disciplinary group of experts from 31 January to 1 February 2012 to examine all evidence related to the potential effects of hormonal contraception on HIV acquisition, transmission, and disease progression.

WHO said in a statement that it was taking caution against making hasty changes to contraceptive policy or practice and would convene a meeting this year to discuss the study.

A recent study from the University of Washington in Seattle has revealed that contraceptives such as Depo Provera may double the chances that a woman would contract HIV. The study followed 3 790 couples in which one partner had HIV.

In couples where the woman used Depo Provera, the woman was nearly twice as likely to acquire HIV infections from their infected partners as those who used no contraception. Those women were also twice as likely to transmit the infections to their partners.

Depo Provera, is a contraceptive injection used by most women in sub-Saharan Africa for birth control.

The Rwanda government is currently in an intensified effort to sensitise couples on birth control where the use of Depo povera is dominantly administered.

The contraceptives provide protection against pregnancy for up to 14 weeks, but the injection must be received once every 12 weeks to remain fully protected.

WHO said that experts would decide through consensus if modifications were needed to the WHO guidelines for hormonal method use among women with HIV or women at risk of contracting HIV.

It is estimated that about 12 million women in sub-Saharan Africa use injectables and eight million use oral contraceptive pills, while 11 million women use non-hormonal methods.

Over the past 15 years, the number of women choosing to use injectables has grown substantially because the method is highly effective and does not require daily action. It can also be used privately.

{{Recently released findings by the international charity WaterAid, show that there are more people in the world today lacking adequate sanitation services than in 1990.}}

The report shows that unless urgent action is taken, but nearly all governments in Sub-Saharan African will fail to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) pledge they made to halve the proportion of people without sanitation by 2015.

On the current trajectory, it will take over two centuries for Sub-Saharan Africa to meet its sanitation MDG target.

According to Nshuti Rugerinyange, WaterAid’s Country Representative in Rwanda, every year thousands of children die in Rwanda due to a lack of adequate sanitation and clean water.

He says, “This is the true cost we bear from the failure to ensure basic water and sanitation services. The Government should increase the level of spending on water and sanitation, and donors increase their pledge of aid they spend on water and sanitation, if we want to turn this situation around.”

The report further states that to get the sanitation and water MDGs back on track, countries in sub-Saharan Africa need to spend at least 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on WASH services.

9,305 children died from diarrhea in 2008 in Rwanda, according to Child Health Epidemiology reference group of WHO and UNICEF, lancet 2010. Rwanda has one of the highest under-five mortality rates.

In the two weeks prior to the country’s last Demographic Household Survey (DHS), 13.7% of children under the age of five had had diarrhea.

{{Twenty five pediatricians from various hospitals in the country have completed training on how to deal with infants in critical health situations.}}

The training aimed reducing children mortality which often occurs during birth delivery.

Lisine Tuyisenge , secretary of the Rwanda Pediatric Association noted that the training would help improve health services in not only urban but rural pediatric units.

She noted that there have been partnering with similar associations in the region to exchange some of the best practices.

Labai Bikorimana one of the trainees noted that he intends to train his colleagues given that there’s a culture of negligence among most pedestrians.

“If you allow all patients to line up waiting for the doctor some might die on the queue, that’s why we first access patients and give priority to those in critical situations,” Bakorimana said.

Bakorimana noted that the new training equiped them with modern skills of selecting and giving first aid to most sick children and new born baby resuscitation which means giving life to a born baby who is not breathing or other severe complications.

John Wachira the chairman of Kenya Pediatric Association noted that they have been training the local pediatricians on some of the best practices.

“There’s what we call supportive care literally means that a sick infant doesn’t only get injected with medical fluids but also fed,” Wachira advised.

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{{Circumcision in heterosexual males could reduce HIV by up to 60%, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).}}

The government of Rwanda is to start a non-surgical circumcision drive ‘PrePex’ intended to lower risks of HIV transmission and infections by 50%, according to the study done in the country showing the advantages of using the devise.

Physicians show that the PrePex devise enables circumcision to be performed without surgery or any blood loss, by nurses, who don’t need extensive training to use the apparatus.

The Rwandan Government has completed its third trial of PrePex with nearly 600 volunteers and has concluded recommending that the device is a safe and efficient way of performing circumcisions.

The results were presented at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) in Africa (ICASA).

Agnes Binagwaho, the Minister of Health recommended on the initiative saying, “We are unwilling to allow our health system resource challenges to dissuade us from our mission: to create a healthier, HIV-free Rwanda. We are committed to finding innovative, safe and effective solutions to make this happen.”

“This study shows that with the non-surgical PrePex device we can safely task-shift circumcision from surgeons and family physicians to nurses, which if nationally scaled up, would make a significant contribution to our public health system.” The Minister added.

Recommending on study made in Rwanda; Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS said, “We commend the government of Rwanda for progressing the science of HIV prevention for the benefit of the region.”

“Innovation is the key to achieving our target of 20 million voluntary adult male circumcisions by 2015 and saving millions of lives. Devices such as PrePex have the potential to facilitate safe and rapid scale up of male circumcision for HIV prevention, an urgent need in Sub Saharan Africa,” he added.

An evaluation from the World Health Organization said the study of the PrePex device provides further clinical evidence that circumcision performed by nurses when using the PrePex device is fast, safe and effective, enabling a bloodless procedure that requires no injected anesthesia, no sutures and no sterile settings.

The device basically works by stopping the flow of blood to the foreskin. It remains in situ for a week, after which time it is removed along with the foreskin that has died due to lack of circulation.

The average time for installation of the device is less than three minutes, with the advantage that it doesn’t involve surgery or cause blood loss, and thus can be performed by nurses.

The device and procedure, which can be performed in a regular doctor’s consulting room has an AE rate of 0.34% (2 out of 590), and the total study adverse event (AE) rate when performed by nurses was 0.83%.

All resolved with minimal intervention, and the AE rate was lower than previously reported AE rates for surgical male circumcision when performed by surgeons (4.8%).

The study was approved by the Rwanda National Ethics Committee and was conducted at Kanombe military Hospital, Kigali Rwanda, between July 2011 and October 2011.