Capacity Development in Rwandan Health Care management
Health is one of Rwanda’s development priorities, which is clearly relevant in a densely-populated country like Rwanda. Rwandan resources are the people; so good health care is of essential importance. In 2008 Rwanda counted 40 hospitals, but only 4 of them were lucky to have a professional hospital manager.
Kanombe Hospital - a referral hospital for army personnel and for people of the Kicukiro District - was not one of them. The hospital is treating patients that are redirected from any of the 9 district health centers and other patients coming from far beyond. These days the hospital is treating over 300 patients a day.
This increasing number of patients overtime demanded for structural changes, pooling of more resources and quality improvements, hence the need for a professional hospital manager.
With support from the BTC, Mr Vianney Mugisha, the Director of Administration and Finance of Kanombe Hospital, has undertaken a Masters program in Business Administration in International Hospital and Healthcare Management in Germany. This MBA program develops entrepreneurial managers equipped with advanced skills and expertise to master the challenges in a globalizing healthcare sector.
Making changes
Mr. Mugisha says the MBA brought him an extensive knowledge of all aspects of international hospital management. “The course is a real eye-opener; we learnt to use resources efficiently, to manage hospital processes, to keep costs low but maintain good quality treatment and to plan hospital activities on long and short term basis.”
With a few resources available, it’s very important to plan properly. “You need to prioritize what we need most and what is most important for the patients. Also short term planning is crucial; we have to be ready for unforeseen challenges at any time, our aim is to save lives, and every planning, monitoring and budgeting activity is in the end related to this.”
By visiting other hospitals in Europe during his study, he also discovered the possibility of installing an oxygen plant, which is a machine to produce oxygen and a more sustainable solution for supplying the hospital with oxygen than buying expensive oxygen tanks every month from other hospitals. “It’s a big investment at once but on a long term basis, this will help us to make the hospital more cost efficient, and more importantly, will help us to save lives.”
Health care, a priority for the whole country
Mr. Mugisha finds it extremely important to transfer the knowledge he acquired to other Rwandan hospitals. “My aim is not to get this knowledge and sit on it, my aim is to disburse everything I learnt to make the health care in Rwanda better.”
Mr. Mugisha graduated as the 5th professional hospital manager in Rwanda in June 2010.
Mr. Mugisha’s MBA study is funded by the Belgian Government through the BTC “Support to Capacity Development in Rwanda” Project, whose implementation is coordinated by the Public Sector Capacity Building Secretariat (PSCBS).
Article and photos: Marie Bijnens
