Rwanda - Day 2

Rwanda - Day 2

Meeting with the Dr Desire Ndushabandi, Rector of the Kigali Health Institute (KHI)  where the ultrasound course will be on Wednesday. Further good news, KHI  will start an ultrasound clinic for the local women as soon as some of the project starts. This is very important as  KHI is the main training centre for midwives in Rwanda. MAF was involved in the training of the student midwives at KHI 2 years ago. The corresponding films are visible within the login pages of the website.

 We were introduced to Philomene – a nurse from KHI who took us to the skills lab where training of the midwives/nursing staff takes place. The ultrasound equipment there was adequate for training purposes and we were delighted that this would complement the machines for field use, which have been promised to the project by the manufacturer. The training can therefore take place on a high tech machine and the practice can be undertaken using a machine fit for purpose!

 

Following our meeting we were driven to Nyamata hospital where we met the hospital Director-Daria Mukamusoni. Nyamata serves a population of 300,000 and supports 11 rural health centres. Only 65% of its population delivers in health centres and hospitals. The remaining 35% of the population receive no medical care and deliver in their homes. MAF would hope to encourage these women to receive health care in pregnancy and subsequent support in labour. We discussed the “magnet effect” that ultrasound may have of drawing these women to a clinic in order to have a scan. The hospital director’s comment was “you won’t have to advertise on the radio, news will spread fast from mother to mother and they will be queueing.”

 

Dr Mukamusoni selected a rural clinic and we set off into south eastern Rwanda to the Mareba Clinic.

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