The Agony at CHUK

Jean Paul Hakizimana, 48, a father of three is seated on the verandah of one of the casualty wards at Kigali Central University Hospital (CHUK). The father from Rubavu district fractured his leg over a month ago, but only pieces of cloth hold his leg together as he continuously waits for medical attention. There is no hospital bed available for Hakizimana. With his broken leg, he is forced to spend his nights in the hospital corridors hoping some one will attend to him. “I have been here for over a month and for sure I don’t know if I will go back home,” Hakizimana says. “My leg pains a lot especially in the night when I battle with the cold.” Hakizimana, a construction worker by profession says that he was tearing down a wall one day when part of it fell on him and fractured his leg. He was taken to Nyundo hospital in Rubavu where he was referred to CHUK because Nyundo had no ability to treat him. Hakizimana says that he is worried, not only about his injury, but also because his family in Rubavu that depends on him. “If I take long, my children will have nothing to eat,” he says. Just like Hakizimana, Pierre Habimana does not know when he will get to see a doctor. “If you don’t have a bed here, your chances of doctors attending to you are zero,” Habimana says. He too, spends nights on the corridors. According to Habimana, in early June when he was knocked down by a hit and run car. He was brought to CHUK where the nurses asked him to wait on the verandah of the causality ward because there were no beds and space left in the wards. “When I reached here (CHUK) they x-rayed me and I was told that I’m supposed to be operated and that I needed to wait for the doctor,” Habimana said. Close to two months, Habimana is still waiting.The director of the CHUK, Theobald Hategekimana says the management is aware of the problem, and they working hard to solve it. “We are trying to construct a new wing for causality patients,” Hategekimana says. “Since 1994 we have been using the same causality ward which has become too small.” According to the hospital management, the section for accident victims can only contain 20 people leaving many patients to crowd the verandahs and corridors. Hategekimana also says that there is also a lack of surgeons to work on the accident victims. This problem, he says, can be solved by students picking interest in the field, but, that’s not happening. “Few students want to become surgeons because it requires a lot of commitment and you spend a lot of time on the job,” Hategekimana says. “It takes 10 years to become a surgeon, six years for general medicine and four to specialize” In the meantime, Dr Richard Sezibera, the Minister of Health says that surgeons from abroad shall be recruited to help reduce the waiting times. For the already existing patients, Hategekimana said that surgeons and nurses from around the country came up with a collective effort (surgeon without weekend), where one weekend every month they converge at CHUK and operate a large number of patients. An initiative he refers to as Umuganda. “During this monthly umuganda, the doctors manage to operate 15 patients per day.” Hategekimana says, adding that initiative will soon spread to hospitals in the countryside. Ends