Just like all sectors seem to be upgrading their products and services, the health sector courtesy of the liberty to own individual businesses is following suit.

Continentale Pharmacy, a private pharmaceutical shop located in Remera, introduced a machine that makes a variety of body, heart and blood pressure related diagnostics. The machine medically called Sphygmomanometer or Sante Point is a ‘one stop centre’ for health diagnostics.

According to Fabrice Ngoga the Managing Director of Pharmacie Continentale, measuring blood pressure and heart rate is done to detect heart related dangers to facilitate their control and treatment.

"Some people suffer from heart related problems. This machine serves to help people know their heart status for timely treatment and control,” said Ngoga.

This device uses Ultra sound in its measurements and this goes for the sophiscated tasks like high blood pressure, heart rate and others. 

Other things that Sante Point measures include weight and height. This is intended to find out whether the person’s body weight is compatible with his or her height and bone strength which helps in determining the prescriptions.

For blood pressure and blood sugar measurements, the intention is to detect dangers of the body encountering problems of diabetes and related diseases which normally have a causal effect from excessive fats in the body.

Sante Point also measures the fat mass and in this, an assessment of the fats count in the body is done and after this a prescription of whether to reduce the fats count or to add is made by the doctor.

This is done to ensure balanced fat levels in the body. The fats level according to an attendant at the pharmacy depends on a person’s sex and age.

Also measured is the Body Mass Index (BMI). This is to find out whether the person’s body is excess or below the necessary mass. If it is discovered that the body mass is excess, prescriptions are given to reduce so as to control the dangers associated with obesity and excessive fats.

The Sante Point machine is activated using tokens which are sold at the pharmacy, ranging from the Rwf 500 to 1000, depending on the nature of what is detected.

For weight and height measurements, Rwf 500 is charged while Rwf 1000 is charged for the heart rate and blood pressure and the results come out after a maximum of 1; 30 minutes.  

Ends