KIGALI - As a measure of increasing access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy among HIV patients in the country, the Ministry of Health has launched a training program for all nurses in the country that will equip them with skills to prescribe ARVs.

According to Dr. Nathalie Umutoni, an official in charge of the program in the ministry, this initiative seeks to ensure that all HIV patients get their treatment on time so that they do not skip doses.

"We have a few doctors in the country and most of these are based at district hospitals. Since they only visit the small health centres once or twice a month, we realized that it is not right for patients on ARV treatment to wait for those visits in order to acquire more medication”
"By training the nurses, we enable task-shifting of this exercise so that nurses can also assist in the distribution of this medication,” Umutoni said.

Initially this medical exercise was specifically conducted by doctors. The official emphasized that doctors will still play their role in fostering ARV treatment only that this time round, nurses will actively participate to ensure close follow up on these patients.

Statistics from the Ministry show that by the end of 2009, over 70,000 patients in the country had accessed ARV treatment. Rwanda’s HIV prevalence rate stands at 3 percent.

There are 415 health centres and 42 district hospitals countrywide. Officials note that the doctor-to-patient ratio is 1:20,000, which calls for capacity building initiatives for nurses in a bid to promote quality health care even at the community level.

The training programme for nurses that will end in September, is conducted under TRAC plus.

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