RSSB to include more insurable occupational hazards

This was revealed Wednesday in a validation meeting that brought together medical professionals, health insurance companies and ministries aimed at reviewing Bareme Officiel Rwandais des Invalidités (BORI) a document that was written in the 1980s detailing occupational diseases with a relatively short list of diseases, mainly in mining”

Oswald Munyandekwe, RSSB’s Director of Pensions said in an exclusive interview with IGIHE said there are new diseases to add on the list citing HIV/AIDS infection that can be passed on to a medical practitioner in the process of treating patients and back pains resulting from long hours of immobility.

“It was a challenge for workers to get compensations for work-related diseases or accidents, but for now, most of them will be included in the list in order to protect workers,” he said.

He also talked about the 1975 BOBI (Bareme Officiel Belge des Invalidités) a guideline to the government of Rwanda’s insurance laws, changed to Bareme Officiel Rwandais des Invalidités (BORI), written in French only, leaving out doctors that can only comprehend English.

Another challenge Munyandekwe mentioned, is that it was difficult to obtain information from the guideline and the level of disability was not specified.

Munyandekwe said that both books were reviewed by medical practitioners and other health insurance professionals. So far, some reviews have been completed, left with Presidential and ministerial decrees likely to be done before December.

Munyandekwe said the two Guideline documents will be available in both French and English languages, but will later to be translated to Kinyarwanda.

Theobard Ndayisaba, who works with one of the insurance companies operating in Rwanda, says that like insurance company workers, they are grateful for the project and the work is done because they have been introduced to end disagreements between physicians and health insurance companies about the degree of disability that someone lived with.

He said, “You would have a physician describing the level of a disability, and find that it was groundless. It would only lead to disagreements. It would happen that the doctor who treated a patient would not be the one who described the level of a disability. As a result, what the doctor said would be in disagreement with an insurance company.”