By JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE

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The Ministry of Health needs about Rwf15.3 billion to construct more health centres to cater for increasing demand.

There is demand for additional of at least 450 health facilities to serve communities across the country in the next five years.

Minister for Health Diane Gashumba says more health centres would result in improved service delivery. The plan is for every Cell to have a health facility to reduce the distance travelled by patients from three and two hours in some areas to only between 25 and 30 minutes.

The Ministry of Health also targets to increase its human resource, with a nurse to patient ratio of 800 people per one nurse as opposed to 1,261 people.

It also targets to reduce doctor to patient ration to 1:7,000 from 1:8,919. A pharmacist is expected to attend to 15,000 from 138,398 people by 2024.

This is part of the plan to meet demand for maternal and neonatal services as pregnant women in remote areas are still facing the risk of giving birth at home or walking hours long distance to get to the nearest health facility.

Access barriers
The residents of Bugesera told Rwanda Today that despite the increased uptake of the community health insurance — Mutuelle de Sante — long distance and costly transport to seek healthcare still constituted a barrier for many.
The district is set to get eight health posts with the support of Abbott, a US-based healthcare firm which launched one of the facilities in Gikundamvura cell a week ago.

The new health facility is equipped with modern technology that enables nurses to perform a number of tests for critical prenatal infectious diseases like HIV, hepatitis B, syphilis and malaria within 30 minutes.
Damian Halloran, Abbott's vice president of infectious disease in emerging markets and rapid diagnostics, said the health post has the capacity to offer an expanded range of primary health services, testing and treatment of diseases with reduced workload.
“We are working together with the ministry to put a proposal together to go to the large global funders because we all agree that antenatal screening should be the standard care for every pregnant woman,” he said.

Long distance
“Several pregnant women would only get checked only twice as opposed to four times required due to the long distance they need to cover to access the nearest health facility,” said Donatha Nishyirimbere, a community health worker.

It is estimated that Bugesera would need over Rwf400 million, exclusive of the cost of land, to expand similar health facilities in the remaining remote rural cells.

Like other budget constrained districts, authorities have had to rent houses for the health posts where they are most needed.
“It is expensive but the impact of the health posts on human security cannot be underestimated. We urge the districts to make it priority under their performance contract such that all underserved areas have these facilities without waiting for 2024,” Ms Gashumba told Rwanda Today.