Sezibera wants poor health service providers reported

KIGALI - The Minster of Health, Dr. Richard Sezibera has called upon the public especially those who may witness any forms of poor service delivery in the health sector to come out and report their offenders. “Getting good health services is every person’s right,” Sezibera said.  

Sunday, December 20, 2009
Dr. Richard Sezibera

KIGALI - The Minster of Health, Dr. Richard Sezibera has called upon the public especially those who may witness any forms of poor service delivery in the health sector to come out and report their offenders.

"Getting good health services is every person’s right,” Sezibera said.

"It’s not a favour they are doing you. So if they handle you poorly you should come out and report them to us. We need to get rid of this tendency and this will be one of the ways,” the Minister said.

This was during a press conference to highlight the Ministry’s achievements this year.

"I acknowledge customer care is still one of the things that are not going on well in health service provision. It’s an issue of behaviour change that we are trying to tackle, but we need people to help us identify the culprits, even if it means pointing out their names because we can’t go on like this.”

The Minister said they are going to put up hotlines and also strengthen the existing feedback loops from the public on their websites. The Ministry hopes this will enable people air their health concerns as well as reporting health practitioners who offer poor services.

Secretary General at the Ministry Agnes Binagwaho, advised both patients and medical practitioners to read and get acquainted with the patient rights charter.

Among other challenges pointed out that still face the sector include uncoordinated services of mituelle de sante which cause long queues when patients are seeking medication.

The Minster said that this service is going to be revised and new mechanisms of making it effective be adopted starting early next year.

Ends