Help NUR Medical students

Editor, Students from the Faculty of Medicine at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) who are supposed to do their internship from various hospitals (CHUK, CHUB, King Faisal and Kanombe) should have reported for their internship yesterday. However, they seem to be in trouble because of lack of facilitation.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Silas Lwakabamba(File Photo)

Editor,

Students from the Faculty of Medicine at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) who are supposed to do their internship from various hospitals (CHUK, CHUB, King Faisal and Kanombe) should have reported for their internship yesterday. However, they seem to be in trouble because of lack of facilitation.

The Minister of Health wrote a letter to the Rector, Prof. Silas Lwakabamba, asking the University to redesign the internship programme because the ministry is not able to continue supporting it.

The Faculty Dean informed the students that he was not able to meet the Rector to discuss the matter. He told students to report to their respective internship centres on Monday, giving them two days to prepare.

The Rector also later explained that the University had no money to support students’ internship programme.
My concern is that the time given to students to report for internship was not ample, considering that they had not been facilitated.

The administration forgets that there are students without relatives in Kigali, where they can stay. And without money to rent a house, the situation becomes troubling.

The New Times, a couple of weeks ago published a story saying 75% of students had failed recent medical exams. I think this emanates from the failure to adequately facilitate students.

Apparently, Medical students pay Rwf1,500,000 in tuition. But it appears there is no value for this money.
One wonders how the students will be competent when they are trained in such way. At this point in time, there is still room to help these students to save the situation.
Adeline MUTEGARUGOLI

mu.adeline@gmail.com