Burera District will this 2018/19 fiscal year receive 12 new health posts which are expected to not only cut short the long distance made by citizens to get medical services, but also curb the use of unauthorized means to get treatment.

Construction activities of the new health posts kicked off last week through community work (Umuganda) held in Rubona Cell, Nemba Sector.

According to officials, the new health posts are going to be constructed through collaboration between Burera District and development partners including Partners in Health (Inshuti mu Buzima), Society Heath Family (SHF) as well as the Ministry of Health.

Burera District so far has 19 health centres operating in all its 17 sectors, 37 health posts operating at a cell level and the Ministry of Heath promised to build four new health posts by September this year.

Once all the new health posts are complete, the district will achieve its goal of having at least a one heath post in each of its 69 cells.

"This is a very good step towards cutting down on the long distance made by people to seek health services and this will obviously lead to the sustainable development of our district,” said Florence Uwambajemariya, Burera District mayor.

Uwambajemariya explained that every health post will be completed at a cost of Rwf20 million.

Speaking during the launch of construction works of the 12 health posts, Dr. Diane Gashumba, the health minister said the government aims at constructing 1200 new heath posts countrywide to ensure each cell of the country has one.

"Some heath centres are still far from the community which is against our policy of bringing services closer to the people. We want to reinforce Community Health Workers’ programme and this will only work through having health posts in the communities,” she said.

Minister Gashumba said that having heath posts is a big step towards universal health coverage and will significantly reduce further the mortality rate, especially for mothers and children under 5.

So far, she said, Nyanza District has been covered with all cells having at least one health post.

"We wish districts could even aim for more than two or three to make sure that people make the shortest distance possible to get medical care,” she said, adding that government will play its part to realise this.

Some residents of Burera district said some of them were crossing to seek medical attention from neighbouring countries which several leaders, including President Paul Kagame, said should not be happening.

During the celebration to mark Liberation Day last week, President Kagame said called for decentralization of all services, saying that it was unfathomable that people should cross borders to seek basic services.

"Because many of health centres are far; we have been crossing illegally to neighboring countries to get treatment but we are now determined to ensure these posts are built to have these services close to us,” said Josiane Kandarage from Nemba Sector.

The country so far has 47 hospitals, 504 health centres, over 500 health posts with 45,516 community health workers.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw