The National Commission for Human Rights is pushing for affordable access to prostheses—artificial body parts—for people with disabilities.

Specifically, the organisation is advocating for the inclusion of the artificial body parts used by people with disabilities on community-based health insurance scheme – mutuelle de santé.

The Commission made the recommendation on Wednesday, October 14, 2020 while presenting its activity report for the financial year 2019/2020 to both chambers of parliament.

Prosthesis is an artificial body part that is used to replace the damaged part of the body to help improve medical conditions for the affected person.

According to the National Council of Persons with Disabilities, a prosthesis costs between $468 (over Rwf400, 000) and $936 (over Rwf800, 000) depending on the type, making them unaffordable for many people with disabilities.

The same issue was also exposed by the Commission’s previous report 2018/2019.

Senator Adrien Umuhire wanted to know the strategies in place to ensure that body replacement and support devices are accessed and covered by mutuelle de santé in all hospitals.

"This issue has been recurrent in the reports of the National Commission for Human Rights,” she said, demanding for a plan from the Ministry of Health and the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) to address the problem.

Marie-Claire Mukasine, Chairperson of the National Human Rights, told legislators that the Ministry of Health cited the high cost of prostheses among the challenges that limit accessibility to medical devices.

"The ministry said that the body part replacement devices (prostheses) are expensive, and it is not easy to cater for them as things stand now,” she said.

Mutuelles de santé has been struggling with insufficient funding.

She said that the ministry outlined various strategies to address the problem, including production of prostheses locally.

"We think that such a strategy will be much helpful,” she said.

Last month, RSSB Director-General, Regis Rugemanshuro told The New Times that there are medical services that are not covered by mutuelle de santé thus far, not because they are not needed, but rather because of insufficient means.

"Some specialised services such as hearing aids, some orthopaedic appliances, some specialised and expensive surgeries are offered at King Faisal Hospital only. mutuelle de santé has not yet been able to cover them,” he said.

In line with solving the problem, Rugemanshuro said that the Government took measures to increase sources of funding for the community-based health insurance scheme.

Also, he said, a revised list of medical services paid with the support of the mutuelle de santé will be made.

According to estimates from the Ministry of Local Government, the country has more than 160,000 people with disabilities.