A team of six Egyptian medical specialists on Thursday expressed interest in setting up a joint medical school in Kigali.The medics, who have been in Rwanda for a week performed surgery on 50 patients at the Central Teaching Hospital of Kigali (CHUK) and King Faisal Hospital.Prof Elhalaby Essan, a Pediatric Surgeon, who is part of the team, paid that they want to create a sustainable partnership with Rwanda.“We would like to come here for more than the missions…we want a joint medical school here and something sustainable to maintain our partnership with Rwanda. This would help have more Rwandan specialists thus improving the health of the population,” Essan said.He added that Egypt is the best place for Rwandan doctors to train since they have some of the oldest medical schools in the Middle East that have produced first-class doctors with vast experience.Essan also commended Rwandan medics for their zeal to learn and acquire broader skills in their profession.The Minister of Health, Dr Agnes Binagwaho, assured the team that her ministry would sustain the partnership, pledging to assist them to realize their dream of starting up a school in the capital.“This has opened doors for a great future collaboration which is set to boost our medical practitioners, which inevitably trickles down to the population,” she said.She added that a number of Rwandan nurses and doctors were last year sent to Egypt for short courses in medicine.Binagwaho added that this was evidence that Africa has the solution for Africa.Dr.Jean de Dieu Ngirabega, the director of general clinical services in the ministry, noted that such missions serve two purposes; imparting skills to Rwandans medics and treating Rwandans.He noted that the Egyptians are mostly invited to Rwanda for cases that can’t be handled by local doctors; for instance Rwanda currently has no pediatric surgeon.Ngirabega also said that most of the visiting teams are usually taken to CHUK and King Faisal because that is where there is most of the necessary equipment that they can use.He however hastened to add that during such missions, benefitting patients are drawn from all parts of the country, depending on the urgency of the cases.
