CNLG, MoH differ over handling of trauma cases

The National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), yesterday accused the Ministry of Health (MoH) of not taking full responsibility in the coordination of activities designed to handle trauma cases during the annual Genocide commemoration period. The disagreement between officials from the two institutions arose during a meeting that drew all stakeholders to plan how to handle trauma cases during the upcoming 18th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The commemoration week is slated to begin on April 7. “Normally, when an event is held, officials come and speeches are made. In the process, people start getting traumatised by remembering what happened…we get many traumatised people. But when an event ends, everybody leaves the place, including the volunteers,” stated Jean De Dieu Mucyo, the Executive Secretary of CNLG.“We are left with those people at the site yet we need assistance to have them treated. This is why we have always asked the Ministry of Health to be in charge of the coordination of these activities so that these people are accorded proper treatment and not abandoned”. He added that the ministry has been part of a team that deals with trauma cases at a higher level, but that it needs to move down to the grassroots. In her response, the Director of the Psychosocial Consultation Centre, Yvonne Kayiteshonga, said it was wrong for the CNLG to blame the ministry for what it has overlooked in the past and should instead focus on what should be done in future. “The Ministry can not afford to find assistants fully deployed permanently at the lowest level of administration. But we can help with training,” Kayiteshonga clarified. She put the recent findings, which indicate that 28 percent of Rwandans suffer from trauma, in perspective. “72 percent of Rwandans are in a very good state. Also, trauma cases are among the lesser issues we receive here at the Psychosocial Consultation Centre,” she disclosed. A recent study carried out by Dr Nasson Munyandamutsa, a Rwandan psychiatrist and his team, revealed that close to one third of the population (ranging from 24 to 28 percent) suffer from various levels of trauma.Recent findings also show that 89 percent of those who get traumatised during the commemoration period are women.