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Successes and Challenges in Maternal and Child Health in Rwanda

March 26th, 2009

A woman sitting at a table
Dr. Anita Asiimwe, Executive Secretary of the Rwandan National AIDS Control Commission

Two people sitting at a table
Jamie Stewart, CARE International of Rwanda and Chris Singer, PhRMA

Two people looking at a woman talking, all sitting at a table
Dr. Fabienne Shumbusho, Family Health International and Jeremie Zoungrana, Jhpiego Access Project listen to Alicia Greenidge, IFPMA.

Monday March 23, 2009 – To celebrate Mother and Child Health Week in Rwanda, Global Health Progress (GHP) held a roundtable discussion with a variety of maternal and child health-focused organizations operating in Rwanda to learn more about ongoing projects promoting the health of women and children. Maternal and child health represent two of the eight Millennium Development Goals, which were established by the United Nations with the goal of achieving them by 2015.

Rwanda is making good progress in improving access to health-related services. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers Rwanda to have adequate access to health facilities, with three-fourths of the population living between 5 and 10 km of a health clinic. Challenges posed by Rwanda’s mountainous geography, however, make it difficult for some people to reach even relatively nearby facilities. Moreover, the population of Rwanda is expected to reach 12 million by the year 2010, which may significantly impede the country’s progress due to resource constraints.

Dr. Anita Asiimwe, the Rwandan National AIDS Control Commission Executive Secretary, spoke at the roundtable of the need for additional healthcare workers (including not only doctors, but also midwives and paramedics), noting that Rwanda currently has only one healthcare professional for every 50,000 people. Dr. Asiimwe added that Rwanda only has a total of 16 pediatricians and 10 OBGYNs nationwide. The government is currently addressing these and other critical challenges to providing care for women and children by focusing on recruiting and training at least four volunteer healthcare workers for every 150 homes, linking these families to the nearest clinics.

Malaria is currently the predominant killer of children in Rwanda, and the country’s successful anti-malaria program, Programme National Integre de Lutte Contre le Paludisme, aims to reach 90 percent of all households with at least one bed net by 2012. Dr. Asiimwe spoke of using the current infrastructure of this successful program as a model for larger-scale healthcare efforts to meet the needs of women and children.

The discussion following Dr. Asiimwe’s remarks focused on issues such as maternal mortality and – since family health is often perceived to be only a woman’s issue – strategies to encourage men to take more responsibility for the health of their children and families.

Participants included:

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