At 11 am on Tuesday, February 23, 2016, Dr Venant Ntabomvura engages in examining a patient at the University Teaching Hospital of Butare (CHUB). The 90-year-old started medical practice in 1946 and it is now about two years since he retired.

The resident of Ruturo Cell, Kibirizi Sector in Gisagara District said there is no point in remaining idle while one has skills to offer to help other people, adding that remaining seated with no work is not good for health.

"If you take a hoe that you have once used for plowing and lay it somewhere, for one year for instance, it will rust.

If I sit without working, I cannot live longer. Working is one of the factors helping the body to be alive; it is like healthy nutrients. It’s like we teach people to practice sports,” he said.

Ntabomvura had 13 children – two have since passed on – and lives with his wife aged 87.

Ntabomvura studied medicine at the former National University of Rwanda (now University of Rwanda) and specialised in otorhinolaryngology (ORL) – the combined specialties of diseases of the ear, nose, pharynx, and larynx; including diseases of the head and neck, tracheobronchial tree, and esophagus.

He said what pleased him the most is helping a patient to recover.

"Meeting a person and they stare at you, greet you and salute you, even when you do not know them; that is the best reward. There are others who come and tell me ‘oh, it’s you who operated on me that time,’ when I no longer remember them and you start thinking that you did well, which is rewarding,” he said.

However, he said now, what he does is examining patients, prescribing medicine and carrying out some medical services but he cannot perform long-lasting or major operations because he is retired.

Ntabomvura offers medical services on his will, regardless of salary.

"I only get monthly pension benefits. For me, I realise that my happiness is among patients. Having a person standing before you, having come showing you that they have trusted you, and when God helps you and the person who was bed-ridden, to recover, you feel proud, and say to yourself, ‘I might also be important,’” he said.

Medical profession as a ‘calling’

Ntabomvura said of all the works he tried his hands at, it is medical profession that has pleased him the most, . "Even now, you can see that ‘I have eaten but I did not get satisfied,’” he said in referrence to assuming medical duties. "Offering medical services to patients, talking to your colleagues and sharing advice is something that I enjoy a lot,” he said.

"I can compare it as taking a yummy meal. When I treat a person I use my brain based on what a patient says to diagnose a disease and establish its medication. When I interact with the patient, I am in fact, reminding myself and it prevents me from getting forgetful,” he said.

After primary school, Ntabomvura joined Groupe Scolaire Officiel de Butarefor secondary stuties and after four years, they had to choose what option to pursue, from nursing, agronomy, veterinary and human medicine, and the matters concerning royal household administration.

He preferred nursing and later served as a nurse, before embarking on further studies that saw him become a medical assistant. Back then, being a medical assistant involved in heading a health centre.

Ntabomvura said he travelled across the country working in various dispensaries, even in Burundi [Rwanda-Urundi].

Dr Ntabomvura, who remains proud of his "001” registration number – the first student at the then National University of Rwanda –, said Rwandans were not interested in or did not understand the importance of studying in the 1960s, rather they scrambled for political positions.

"They took up jobs without any idea how long they would last on the job. When I asked some friends to enrol for education, they said I had run ‘mad,’” he said.

Ntabomvura said only a few enrolled in colleges. He was the first student to register at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) and also registered others, then gave the list to Father Levesque, the founder of NUR.

The university was founded in 1963 after the independence of Rwanda in 1962.]

The entire university only had about 25 students, with Ntabomvura’s medical class accounting for 15 of them.

After five years of medical studies at NUR, he became a medical doctor an later the first practitioner of otorhinolaryngology at CHUB in 1976 after training in the specialty in Belgium, France and the US.

What others say about Dr Ntabomvura

The Director of CHUB, Dr Augustin Sendegeya, described Dr Ntabomvura as an honest, dedicated, humble and hard working doctor.

"He taught us and we worked with him well. The first lesson you learn from him is loving work, especially one’s vocation, with all their heart. The second is dedication, then humility and that he is a mentor,” he said, adding that the medical profession is not only a profession as such but there is also a calling for one to do it.

Dr Sendegeya said he held major positions in the country but all those functions he carried out did not prevent him from carrying on medical duties.

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Dr Ntabomvura’s many career roles

Besides managing health centres across the country in the early post-Independence era, Dr Venant Ntabomvura became the director of CHUB, a position he helf for 10 years. He later became the Minister for Health in 1979, a position he held for about three years.

Ntabomvura then served as the Rector of NUR for eight years, and later the Minister for Social Affairs where he signed the documents approving the setting up of people’s banks in the country.

His next stop was Chancellor for National Orders for three years and after 1994, the Director of Otorhinolaryngology at CHUB. He became also professor of ORL at NUR. But, he said even when he was the minister, he had to come and carry out medical services at CHUB.

He said he has a project to build a health center, which has been approved by the Ministry of Health. His health facility is now operating as a health post in Gisagara District.

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