Health experts to promote primary healthcare, hygiene

International health experts have emphasised the importance of primary healthcare toward the health systems of economies. The experts had convened in Kigali for a three-day meeting focusing on improving Primary Healthcare in their respective countries through learning from each other’s experience. Hosted by Rwanda Biomedical Centre, the meeting, that closed this week, brought together experts from Kenya, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Argentina, among other countries, under the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN). JLN is an innovative, country-driven network of practitioners and policymakers from around the globe who co-develop global knowledge products that help bridge the gap between theory and practice to extend coverage to more than three billion people. It has 27 member states. The meeting aimed at addressing the challenges faced by many countries in the current state of data and data systems for health, intending to provide members the opportunity to work with peers and facilitators to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their PHC systems. It also sought to facilitate sharing of experiences and practical tips on how to assess hard-to-measure areas, including provider performance and patient satisfaction in a bid to support the development of measurement guidance in those areas and consider how to best monitor system performance. The impact Closing the meeting, Dr Jean Pierre Nyemazi, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health, emphasised the importance of primary healthcare in Rwanda. “If you look at Rwanda’s healthcare system, what was killing Rwandans about 20 years ago was mostly infectious diseases, and hygiene-related diseases. All were preventable diseases dependent on immediate treatment at the right time,” Nyemazi said. “More than 85 per cent of the achievements that Rwanda made to meet the Millennium Development Goals involved a big role played by community health workers. For example, children deaths, who can reduce them? It is really a woman who is trained, who is dedicated, who is closer to that family, who knows how they behave, who can be there and just do the basics that the child will be saved.” Dr Isabella Maina, head of Health Monitoring and Evaluation Unit in Kenya’s Ministry of Health, said the meeting served to help share ideas to improve the health care systems of the participating countries. She cited lessons she learnt from Rwanda, including the dedication of health workers and the way they link well with community health workers. Maina also learnt more about using data for decision-making, as well as using it to give feedback to the community. The meeting included a PHC site visit to allow participants the opportunity to share Rwanda’s experience in building a strong measurement system to present progress made on the PHC dashboards, a system for measuring PHC indicators. Dr Jean Baptiste Byiringiro, the director of Health Information Systems at Rwanda Biomedical Centre, said the meeting helped them to learn the tools to use to measure the satisfaction of the patients in the health care system. Rwanda joined the JLN in 2016. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

News

Health experts to promote primary healthcare, hygiene