SOUTHERN PROVINCE

HUYE — The National University of Rwanda (NUR) has asked the Ministry of Health to take over Rwanda’s Centre for Public Health (CUSP), an official said.

According to Dr Uzziel Ndagijimana the Varsity’s Vice Rector in charge of Finance and Administration, the university, in a series of correspondences with the Ministry of Health expressed its inability to bankroll the operations of the centre.

"We asked the Ministry of Health to takeover management of the Centre because this does not fall within our mission,” said Ndagijimana.

He added that talks to hand over the centre to the Ministry of Health are on going and that the district has in the meantime been approached to takeover its management until the Ministry finally takes it over.

The problem of management of the Centre started in 2006 after Professor Chrysologue Karangwa, the then Rector of the university wrote to the Ministry of Health expressing the university’s reluctance to fund the operations of the health centre. But since then, it has never materialised.

The confusion surrounding the management has affected the operations of the centre resulting in a high labour turnover over the last two years.

The void in management and over stretched staff has also translated into poor service delivery to over 2000 patients mainly secondary school students who seek treatment at the centre every month.

The centre shares buildings with the National University of Rwanda’s Centre for Conflict Management and according to Ndagijimana, the university is in acute need of office which requires the health centre to relocate.

In a letter dated August 22, 2008 addressed to the Minister of Health, the university authorities indicated that NUR is growing very fast in terms of number of students and staff- which calls expansion of its facilities including the Centre for Conflict Management operating in same premises with the CUSP.

"Given the above constraints, the MINISANTE (Ministry of Health) can use the space currently occupied by CUSP facilities for a period of 2 years while looking for another location,” the letter reads in part.

Efforts to talk to Petronille Uwizeye, the district director of Health were futile as she declined to talk to this reporter.

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