Page 28 - EMBRACE Book

Kanyamahanga, Rwanda
28 29

“I became head of this health facility in 2013. The challenge
here was the lack of health facilities. If you are here, it is
very difficult to go to the nearest health centre. It was 20
kilometres away. But now we have our health centre here
with an ambulance so we can transfer people from here to
the district hospital.

In this sector, which our health facility serves, we have a
population of 16,000. But, we are serving people from other
sectors, as well. I think it’s an additional 13,000 people.

Based on last year’s statistics, we had four newborns die in
our health centre. But now, since we have this maternity
ward, we haven’t had any loss of newborns.

Before this facility, we had almost eight mothers per month
delivering at home. But now, after the training given to the
community health workers and the staff, who have then
turned and educated the community, we have zero women
giving birth at home. The EMBRACE interventions have
made this change, especially because they trained the
health facility staff, the community health workers, and the
local leaders on MNCH issues.

ADRA has given us a full package. We have all the materials
needed for maternity. They’ve given us capacity building,
materials, an ambulance. The ambulance has brought a big
change in the health care at the centre. In two months,
we’ve transferred 20 mothers with complications to the
hospital. Before the ambulance, if you had a problem
beyond our capacity, it took a long time to call to other
health centres or hospitals to borrow an ambulance. But if I
decide that the patient needs to be transferred, I send them
in our ambulance. The ambulance has saved lives.

I am very, very excited just to have this opportunity to
thank the Government of Canada. They’ve done an amazing
thing in this sector and even other health centres that are
working with ADRA. Sectors where ADRA isn’t working are
crying out, ‘When will ADRA work with us?’ It’s amazing,
what they are doing.”

Photo: © 2019 ADRA | Frank Spangler Photo: © 2019 ADRA | Frank Spangler