The Ministry of Health yesterday launched a Human Resource for Health (HRH) Programme that seeks to train 9,000 nurses over a period of seven years.The programme targeting already practising nurses will help them upgrade to A1 (diploma), A0 (degree) and masters levels. Other nurses will also receive specialised training in different disciplines.Benoite Umubyeyi, the dean at the faculty of nursing sciences at Kigali Health Institute said there are currently 8,000 nurses in Rwanda and few work in specialised fields such as mental health and critical care. She revealed that there are very few paediatric nurses who were trained abroad."HRH will strengthen nurses’ education and introduce new post graduate programmes for them. We will also be able to have nurses with master’s degrees thus improving their skills and having more specialists,” she said.Umubyeyi said that so far, there are 27 nurses from the United States who have been placed in different health facilities to teach nursing and midwives in Rwanda.This programme will bring nearly 100 US faculty members and their families to Rwanda each year for the duration of the programme.It seeks to systematically address these issues by increasing the quality of medical and nursing education to raise the ceiling of service delivery in Rwanda.The Minister of Health, Agnes Binagwaho said that through this programme, the country will be able to develop a self sustaining robust health care system independent of foreign aid.There are 77 nurses per 100,000 people but the target is 100 nurses per 100,000 people in Rwanda.The HRH program, which is supported by the Clinton Health Access Initiative, will help address Rwanda’s skills shortage in dental services and general medical services. Global Fund and the US government are among the other partners helping with the program.