Health care
Poor health is not just an individual human drama. It plays an important part in poverty and underdevelopment.
People who are ill often have to pay for expensive health care. They have – at least temporarily –less revenue because there is no social security to help them through.
Four out of eight Millennium Development Goals are directly or indirectly related to health care. More than ever, development cooperation is geared towards the fight against poverty in the world. Projects and programmes focus more and more on the poorest populations and primary health care is an essential part of that.
Just like the World Health Organisation Belgian development cooperation puts primary health care for the poorest populations high on the agenda.
Another important aspect of Belgian healthcare interventions is the renewed attention for the financing of healthcare services, and more specifically the development of insurance systems (health insurance associations). Expensive health care makes for a big hole in the budget op poor people. Also, often the poor do not have enough money to contribute towards health insurance, even if the system exists in their country.
In several countries BTC pays attention specifically to health insurance. There are such health insurance projects in Benin and Senegal; in Vietnam, Niger, Rwanda, Congo and Burundi the financing of health care also is an important aspect of interventions.
In these countries BTC supports the ministry of public health in developing health insurance associations from the bottom up, starting with local organisations at the village level. The challenge is to bring these local initiatives together in a broad social movement with sufficient financial power to provide access to quality health care for the poorest populations. The professionalization of the local movements is also a specific objective.
BTC is an active member of Masmut (Micro Health Insurance – Insurance Associations), the Belgian platform that wants to create a broad partnership with other healthcare organisations, such as NGOs and our own Belgian healthcare insurance system. For instance, RIZIV/INAMI, the Belgian National Institute for Health and Invalidity Insurance, organises special training sessions that are identified and financed by BTC for people from developing countries.
Historically, Belgium has a lot of expertise in establishing healthcare systems in the world. The Institute for Tropical Medicine, with which BTC intensely collaborates, has international fame. In the first place, Belgian interventions support hospitals and healthcare centres who are close to the population. They have to ensure that the broader public gets access to quality health care close to their home, but also to preventive services like mother and child care.
A last important shift in healthcare projects is the special attention being paid to capacity development. In this respect, the training of local healthcare staff is central. It is a way for BTC to guarantee sustainability and secure the impact of the projects for the long term.
Case studies
Better sanitation for a healthy environment
Belgium and the European Commission are co-funding a Water and Sanitation Programme which is rehabilitating rundown water networks in the Southern Province of Rwanda. As part of that programme, more than 1,000 ecological latrines will be built in 80 schools for more than 70,000 pupils.
Gang member turns psychologist
Jean-Pierre is a 19-year-old Peruvian who studies psychology at one of the universities of Lima. A few years ago, his outlooks were bleak: He was a drug addict and gang member and was given a suspended sentence of eight months imprisonment for theft. Thanks to the hosting and support of a specialised therapeutic service, Jean-Pierre is now on track again.
The water is running in Kampala
Hajati Aisha Kyakuwa is 40 years old and has 5 children. She lives in Katwe I parish in Kampala, a slum area in the Ugandan capital. The slums face many problems, a major one being regular flooding after heavy rainfall.
Rwanda - Like a balloon on the verge of bursting…
Marie-Jeanne Ingabire is 25 years old. She makes movies and is also the vice-president for about one hundred first-aid volunteers of the Rwandan Red Cross. 13 April 2011 is the day of the closing ceremony of the Genocide Commemoration week. On Mount Rebero, in Kigali, hundreds of Rwandans come together to gather their thoughts, to listen to witness accounts, lest one forget…
Rwanda : All-out resolve against Nyakatsi
Rwanda has recently embarked on a campaign to phase out grass-thatched houses, locally known as “nyakatsi”, in Kinyarwanda vernacular. According to available statistics, more than eighty thousand huts will be replaced by bricks and iron sheets roofed houses.
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.
Paving and sanitation in Bujumbura
Since their streets were paved, the inhabitants of two central neighbourhoods of the Burundi capital have witnessed and been involved in a clear transformation of their environment and of their quality of life.
Support project for the fight against trypanosomiasis
Thousands of farmers, fishermen, women and children in Congo are stung by the feared tsetse fly and thus fall victim to the terrible sleeping sickness. Because its symptoms and impact are similar to those of the AIDS pandemic – it is also known as 'rural AIDS'.
