The Minister for Health, Dr Diane Gashumba and the Egyptian envoy to Rwanda, Amb. Namira Nabil Mohamed Elmahdy Negm, on Saturday inaugurated a hemodialysis unit at Rwanda Military Hospital - Kanombe, in Kigali. Dubbed the Egyptian-Rwandan friendship hemodialysis unit, the new renal unit, equipped with 10 dialysis machines is the first at the hospital and one that officials said takes the two countries’ friendship to another level. Hemodialysis, commonly called kidney dialysis or simply dialysis, is a process of purifying the blood of a person whose kidneys are not working normally.

"This relationship is an added value to efforts the Government of Rwanda to achieve SDGs,” Dr. Gashumba, said while thanking the Egyptian envoy who has been "doing very much” to get the machines in Rwanda and operational. The minister also thanked the leadership of RMH because, she said, every time she visits, it is for positive developments. "As Minister for health, I assure you of my support.”

It reportedly achieves the extracorporeal – situated or occurring outside the body – removal of waste products such as urea and free water from the blood when the kidneys are in a state of failure. The Egyptian envoy said: "The opening of this wing is taking our friendship to a different level. When it comes to capacity building we will be more than happy to accommodate programmes that help our friends in Rwanda to have new fields that we are good at.”

She said, besides providing donations such as the new unit, her country is also ready to help provide training programmes tailored to the needs of Rwanda.

Telemedicine unit

The envoy also told the hospital’s management and the minister that Egypt was soon giving the hospital a new state-of-the-art telemedicine unit, the first in Rwanda. This, she said, will not just be a teleconference service but will also help in surgical operations.

Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunication technology.

The diplomat said: "What we shall have now is a full telemedicine unit through which images can be transferred. It can be in an operational room. It is a movable unit and the machines can be moved to an operation theatre where doctors in another hospital or country will be operating with Rwandan doctors in the theatre.

"This is pretty advanced and we are going to have a partner for the Rwanda military hospital with one hospital back home in order to have this collaboration.”

The envoy told reporters that she will deliver the support to the hospital next week.

Col Dr Jean-Paul Bitega, the commandant of the hospital, said they are also working to improve the hospital in several other areas as they look to serve the Rwandan population more.

"We currently have two military doctors training in Egypt in oncology and we are sure that in future we shall have others in other specialties,” Bitega said.

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