had devastating effects on the country's health sector, which was already limping and grappling with poor infrastructure, few hospitals, limited equipment and medical supplies to deal with the pressing health emergencies at the time.
Mariane Muhawenimana, 48, who survived the genocide in Nyange area, in the current Ngororero District, says they had to walk for several miles to seek treatment in Kabgayi, Muhanga District, before 1994 and the aftermath. When the RPF-Inkotanyi took over, the country's healthcare system was not only dysfunctional, it also lacked the most basic of infrastructure, while the private hospitals and clinics that existed were out of reach and unaffordable for locals.
She is among people who can tell the difference between the state of healthcare systems under the former and current governments, having lived and worked under both of them. However, the most important change, according to Mukamabano, is the distance Rwandans used to travel to access healthcare services, which has dramatically declined to below 5k to reach the nearest health facility.
"Those days, a mother would come with a sick child and you wouldn't find any medicine to give her or a laboratory to send her to do tests. A child would come with a simple respiratory condition but there were no machines to check that," narrates Mukamabano. For Mukamabano, the biggest achievement Rwanda scored over the past three decades is bringing services closer to the people, through the many health posts and health centres, as well as district and referral hospitals, all of which they have access to.
Mukamabano, who currently works as paediatric doctor at Polyclinic La Medicale , but previously worked at KFH, says that all these different levels of healthcare, starting from the Community Health Worker, have helped to improve access to services. Herself and a few other girls persisted until the current government, which gave an opportunity to all Rwandans regardless of their gender, came into power, and many of them were able to get opportunities to go back to school and upgrade their skills.
Nkusi, who is also an Associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Rwanda, made a difficult choice to abandon joining the liberation struggle to take up his admission to medical school in Uganda, which came around the same time RPF-Inkotanyi had launched a war to return Rwandans in exile home.
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