‘Rebuilding confidence in Rwanda’s health sector’

Editor, Allow me to respond to a story titled “Rebuilding confidence in Rwanda’s future” (The New Times, July 27), in which the Minister of Health, Dr Agnes Binagwaho, argued that it is critical to have trust that all levels of health care system.Over the time, many changes have occurred in the country’s health sector. It is encouraging that Rwanda has increased health service utilisation (previously around 20 per cent a decade ago), while health financing and health policy changes have begun to help rebuilding that trust. Wondering how much impact making deliveries free at the point of access has made in improving trust and utilisation of services? Regina KeithUK ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor,We wish to response to the question from Regina Keith, which she posed in The New Times online edition, in her feedback to the article ‘Rebuilding confidence in Rwanda’s health sector’. Breaking the financial barrier to healthcare services is fundamental to breaking the cycle of poverty and building confidence in the future. In Rwanda, we have based access to health on the foundation of building and developing solidarity among our people.Service delivery in Rwanda is not free, but is made more accessible to our nation’s most vulnerable populations. The majority of Rwandans (90 per cent) have health insurance and pay annual premium per family members according their revenue. Starting in 2011, we created a payment structure for service premiums based on socioeconomic status. For the poorest 25 per cent of Rwandans, the Government of Rwanda pays the annual premium and co-pay for all services to ensure that cost is not a barrier to accessing health care services. It’s through our national solidarity principle that Rwanda has allocated public funding from taxes and Development Partners funding to ensure that cost is not a barrier to accessing life-saving care. Thus, the cost of the service co-pay is the same for all; the fees for poorest 25 per cent of the population are paid by the government directly to health facilities.Through Rwanda’s equity-based approach, utilization of services has dramatically increased over the years. By removing the cost hurdle to access health care services more Rwandans access health services and this has helped build trust with our health care delivery systems and to our future. Ministry of HealthKigali

Opinions

‘Rebuilding confidence in Rwanda’s health sector’