KIGALI - The Minister of Health, Dr. Richard Sezibera, yesterday, challenged the Rwanda Medical Council (RMC), on the services offered to patients and requested them to dedicate all their time to the profession.

Sezibera made the remarks while addressing the annual General Assembly of the council.

"Your role is not to treat symptoms only, you need to find the disease and treat it. You need to dedicate all your time to the patients. A doctor is supposed to be on duty all the time,” Sezibera told the medics.

 "We need to critically look into the business we are doing and see if we are providing the best services”.

The minister said that although the performance of doctors is generally good, there are cases of misconduct.

"We have heard of cases where doctors abuse patients. This is totally unethical, and remember that patients know their rights,” he said.

During last year’s general assembly, members of the council had set targets on how to improve their profession in terms of performance.

Meanwhile RMC plans to enforce compulsory skills development training in order to improve efficiency of medical practitioners in the country.

Dr. Innocent Gakwaya, the president of RMC, recently told The New Times that a new law governing medical practice, which has been forwarded to parliament, obliges health workers to undergo regular training.

"Junior or senior practitioners will have to train and their performance will act as a scorecard that will determine their continuity in service or disqualification in case of incompetence,” Gakwaya said.

RMC, a national body responsible for registering medical practitioners and representing the interests of doctors across the country, is reported to have, in the past, disqualified some of its members for alleged professional misconduct.

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