Government, US institutions sign deal to build health capacity

Government on Saturday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with some of the leading nursing and medical institutions in the United States to facilitate the implementation of the Human Resources for Health Program (HRHP) in Rwanda.This follows the recent announcement by former US President, Bill Clinton, of a seven-year programme aimed at training the next generation of medical practitioners in Rwanda.The Minister of Health, Dr Agnes Binagwaho signed the MoU for the Program which, according to her ministry website, represents a new model for health education and the delivery of foreign aid.The HRHP is an innovative seven-year partnership between the Government of Rwanda, the United States Government, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria as well as 13 US medical, nursing and global health institutes. According to a press release e-mailed to The New Times by the Embassy of Rwanda in Washington DC, the programme will bring 90 American physicians, nurses, and health managers to Rwanda in 2012 to build student education and advanced training programmes across ten priority specialties and delivery areas. Dr. Binagwaho is quoted saying: “This partnership is poised to transform the global solidarity for the development of the health sector and the way that medical education partnerships are implemented around the world.”The 10 HRHP priority areas are: internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, pathology, anaesthesiology, emergency medicine, nursing and midwifery, global health delivery, and health management. The “vast majority” of medical professionals will work full-time in Rwanda for spans of at least eleven months each, reads the statement.Between 2012 and 2019, “hundreds” of faculty members from the American institutions will partner with Rwandan counterparts to ensure that Rwanda’s health sciences education system produces the quality and quantity of health professionals and medical faculty necessary to serve the country’s population to guarantee a sufficient supply in the future. The number of Americans will decline over time as newly trained Rwandans faculty members assume teaching and mentorship roles.Rwanda has made dramatic progress towards the reduction of premature mortality in recent years, including nearly 80 percent drops in mortality from HIV and tuberculosis between 2000 and 2010 and a 50 percent decline in child mortality between 2005 and 2010. The country’s decentralised health care delivery system, universal community-based health insurance, performance based financing scheme for health facilities, and network of 45,000 community health workers have largely succeeded in controlling infectious diseases. As a result of increasing life expectancy (from 28 years in 1995 to 55 years in 2010) and longer survival of people living with HIV, chronic non-communicable diseases that require specialised care are accounting for a larger share of Rwanda’s burden of disease.The HRHP will address the acute human resources shortage in Rwanda and allow the country to meet these challenges while advancing the Government of Rwanda’s drive for sustainable and equitable economic development. According to the Ministry of Health website, the HRH program will create a new paradigm for cooperation between US academic institutions and academic institutions in Rwanda. Instead of small scale cooperative efforts between individual academic institutions involving exchanges of a few people, it will be a coordinated approach intended to upgrade medical and nursing professions in a comprehensive way according to a national government plan.US academic institutions will make a commitment that is unprecedented in global health. They will supply full-time medical, nursing, health management and dentistry faculty and collaborate with each other on all aspects of health professionals’ education.The ministry states that after eight years, the Rwanda Government is positioned to sustain the improved health workforce on its own without foreign aid.

National

Government, US institutions sign deal to build health capacity