Ministry of Health will prioritize fighting malnutrition in the year 2012, a press statement has indicated.
The Ministry will also put more emphasis in fighting poor hygiene and poor customer care next year.
“If we can collectively struggle to improve hygiene levels in the country, we will have managed to save a substantial amount of money we spend on diseases related to poor hygiene. This money can be channeled to other crucial areas within our sector,” Dr. Agnes Binagwaho the Minister of Health said in a statement.
Dr. Binagwaho also highlighted some challenges faced in the sector that include need for more health infrastructure across the country, lack of adequate human resources like specialized experts and limited resources to address all these challenges.
The Minister has also promised to be holding a quarterly press conference to share with the public progress made within the sector.
According to the statement, over 80% of Rwandans in categories two and three of the new mutuelle policy have so far made their annual contribution to this health insurance scheme largely aimed at bringing equity and accessibility to affordable health care.
Binagwaho attributed this quick response to the value and contribution that Rwandans have seen in this health insurance scheme.
Only 24% of Rwandans fall under category 1 of Mutuelle policy and their contributions will be catered for by the government since they fall largely within the abject poverty level.
The remaining percentage of population is within categories 2 and 3 and is obliged to make their own contribution, at least not later than January 31, 2012.
“The adherence to the new policy on mutuelle de santé is very impressive” the Minister said.
“Even in some areas where we had some problems on data verification, these issues have been resolved well and population is responding positively.”
Binagwaho says a lot of achievements this year, included construction of new infrastructure across the country, improvement in quality of services offered, successful roll out of a new policy on health insurance and setting the course for attaining all major health indicators and targets within vision 2020 and MDGs.
Minister Binagwaho particularly pointed out some success stories such as the fight against malaria and HIV/AIDS, reduction by more than half in both cases and deaths resulting from Maternal and child mortality.
Immunization coverage of up to 90 percent of Rwandan children against 9 killer diseases and the growing number of Rwandan mothers giving birth from a health facility.
She said that because of numerous interventions aimed at fighting and eliminating some killer diseases, life expectancy in Rwanda had tremendously improved.
Therefore, as more and more Rwandans live longer, the sector was now concentrating on how to provide more specialized care for for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) like Cancer and Diabetes.
“All the success stories we see in the sector today are a result of a committed leadership we have right from the top, that is eager to bring dignity to the lives of every Rwandan,” the Minister said.
“The cadres of the health sector have also been outstanding in their delivery.”
ENDS
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