By: ATHAN TASHOBYA
President Paul Kagame, on Saturday evening, met with a team of 18 Indian surgeons who have been in Rwanda on a 12-day medical outreach programme which ran from February 25 to March 6.
The mission was organised by Rotary Club International in conjunction with the Ministry of Health.
The President met the medical team, to appreciate their contribution to Rwanda’s health sector, according to the Health Minister Agnes Binagwaho.
“The President extended his appreciation to the medical team, for their professional voluntary service, which has greatly benefited our medical sector, through offering hi-tech surgeries which we could not offer here in Rwanda,” Binagwaho said.
During their Medicare mission, the team offered free treatment to over 300 patients with different ailments at the University Teaching Hospital Kigali (CHUK) and Rwanda Military Hospital, as well as sharing their experience with the local physicians.
The medical outreach benefited patients suffering from varying physical deformations resulting from accidents, birth defects and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
A teaching session, involving specialists from the mission and military hospital specialists, was organised to benefit around 50 Rwandan doctors and paramedics from different hospitals.
Despite the fact that Rotary medicare missions are usually limited to only one per country, this year’s outreach was the fourth time that a rotary mission is being held in Rwanda.
This year’s medical mission also involved the president of Rotary International, K.R. Ravindran, who became the first Rotary international president to visit Rwanda in the organisation’s 111-year-old history.
Over the course of three years, the medical teams in the preceding Medical missions have been able to provide treatment and corrective surgeries to over 600 vulnerable Rwandan citizens that would otherwise have been beyond their reach.
Rajendra K Saboo, a former president of Rotary International, said that the physicians were delighted in meeting with the president
“His Excellency has been extremely gracious, kind and generous in giving the audience to our doctors,” said Saboo, adding that President Kagame offered to meet the doctors to appreciate their outreach service.
“On Thursday I asked President Kagame, if he had any message I would share with the doctors since they are the ones who do the work in the hospitals. He instead said that he would want to meet them and give the message personally; to express his gratitude to the doctors. I asked for a glass of water and he opened a fountain,” Saboo said.
He added that, this is not a one-off relationship, but rather, they would find ways through which the involved parties could enhance it further.
“We hope that in the future we will have a joint team including Rwandan doctors spreading to other parts of African, so that the continent’s future continues to evolve,” Saboo said.
Saboo said that the Medicare mission experience in Rwanda has been positive, in the sense that this year’s outreached saw the largest number of patients being operated on, compared to the previous missions, with the largest medical team than ever before.
“268 surgeries were made and over 310 medical procedures carried out; in the whole process there were many patients who have been operated on, screened and advised, and this will be a starter for the future which have shown us that we need to bring super specialties for the future mission,” Saboo added.
Rotary also offered to have 20 children from Rwanda going to India for open-heart surgery, and 10 doctors from here going to learn and also have the experience in an Indian hospital.
Rotary will we will take care of teaching and experience expenses for three months, according to Saboo.
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