Dr Rachna Pande first came to Rwanda in 1999, on a private visit to her husband, who had newly been posted in the country. 

Then, and in subsequent visits, little did it occur to her that Rwanda would soon unite her again with her husband, and her profession –medicine. In fact, little did she know that Rwanda would become her new home.

Nine years on, she is the Head of Department (Internal Medicine) at the Ruhengeri Hospital in the Northern Province district of Musanze.

When she eventually moved to the country in 2005, her first job was with the University Teaching Hospital (CHUK), in Kigali. However, she only lasted two months on the job before tendering in her resignation.

"I was living and working in Kigali, while my husband was staying in Musanze and commuting daily to Busogo, a distance of 15 km outside Musanze town. Being all new in the country, it was important to stay in one place, so I joined him in Musanze,” she explains.

She cites security, favorable hot and cold weather, and the generally warm welcome accorded to foreigners as some of the key factors that shaped her decision to pack her bags for Rwanda from her native India.

"Generally, Rwanda is pleasant and quiet, which is not exactly the case back where I come from,” she further observes.

In India, she had worked in a super specialty hospital (one that specializes in exclusive branches of medicine.)

This particular hospital (Bhopal Memorial Hospital) specialized in four medical fields; neurology, cardio-vascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal science.

The hospital is located in Bhopal, the capital city of India’s Central Province. The town gained international notoriety as home to the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984, in which thousands of people perished.

On that night of December 2-3, 1984, a storage tank containing methyl isocyanate (MIC) at the Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked gas into the densely populated city of Bhopal, India, and has been described as one of the worst industrial accidents in history.

Estimates of the death toll vary greatly, but it is believed at least 3,000 people died from immediate exposure to the gas, while higher estimates go up to 8,000. In the two decades following the night of the disaster, approximately 20,000 additional people have died from the damage they received from the gas.

Another 120,000 people live daily with the effects from the gas, including blindness, extreme shortness of breath, cancers, birth deformities, and early onset of menopause.

As fate would have it, Pande was in the town at the time of the carnage, working with the Bhopal Memorial Hospital. Asked what her recollections are of the incident, she says in a deep and weary tone: "It was chaotic!”

That was 1984. But the mass carnage brought on by the gas disaster would leave a permanent mark on the then aspiring medic.

Actually, she considers it the most impactful juncture of her long-running medical career –a turning point: "I saw thousands of people die in a span of just 24 hours,” she says in a heavy voice.

"This was a very large hospital with a big campus, but every inch of space you looked was filled with people –both the wounded and the dead.”

After getting to terms with the situation at hand, and following some deep introspection, the young doctor posed a tough question to herself: "How can each of us help in such chaos?”

Ruhengeri Hospital

As Head of the Department of Internal Medicine for all the nine years she has been in Ruhengeri Hospital, Pande’s mandate is rather broad, and one gets the impression it will grow even bigger should she decide to stick with the hospital any longer.

You will catch her doing ward rounds in the mornings, especially those that fall directly under her immediate jurisdiction –internal medicine.

She holds back-to-back consultation sessions with patients in her modest office, which looks more like a store for medical supplies. She also holds scheduled counseling sessions in the HIV clinic, works the ultra sound scan machine, and takes intern doctors and nurses through the paces.

Pande describes Internal Medicine as a very broad subject that covers a range of medical problems –be it fever, high blood pressure, diabetes, down to all infectious and non-communicable diseases, "plus all other problems related to medical management.”

Good doctor

Is she a good doctor? On this question, Pande initially insists that her patients and the public are the best judges, but after some insistence on my side, she eventually opens up:

"I think the first requirement for a doctor or any good human being is empathy –the ability to appreciate and understand other people’s problems. Narrowing it down to a doctor, the suffering of another person, any problem –be it physical, mental, financial, or social, one should be able to understand and do everything within their means to help.”

Perhaps it is this principle that guided her resolve through one of the most trying moments of her medical career –handling victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster.

"I see no difference between the patients I saw in India and the ones I see in Rwanda. They come with the same problems like poverty, which prevents many patients from completing their dosage. The survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy had the same problems as the survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, who all bore the brunt of events they didn’t create.”

Another guiding virtue she espouses is that of honesty: "Honesty both to self and to patients and everyone else I deal with in the course of work. At no time should the profession ever be marred by any personal interests on the side of the doctor. Also, all patients deserve quick attention from their doctor, whether the patient is in a stable or critical condition.”

She credits her mother for inspiring her into the profession at a very early age. "My mum was always very keen for me to become a doctor, which was interesting because we have no history of doctors in the family.”

Even then, she has never thought of any other profession since then, and further credits her mother for introducing her to the world of books and reading. It is a hobby she still holds dear to this day, and by her own confession, will read a good book at the slightest opportunity.

"Since childhood I’ve been reading anything whenever I get a chance –fiction, thrillers, wild life, history, technical and professional literature, spirituality, and philosophy.”

She has just finished reading Shake Hands with the Devil, a book about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi that she received as a gift.

She is also into writing, something that has given her a public profile as the author of the counseling column, Ask the Doctor, published in The New Times every …. Pande has been writing the weekly column for the last two years, addressing a range of medical and sexual health issues arising from members of the public.

"Some of the problems readers raise are not part of what I know about seeing patients and my medical knowledge,” she remarks of the column.

Still, to come up with answers, she strikes a balance between what her human heart tells her of a particular situation, and what her medical notes say.

Dr Pande is married, with one daughter who is currently attending university in India. As we wind up the interview I ask if she is here to stay and, after a measured pause, she says: "If my husband is still around, then I’m here.”