President Evariste Ndayishimiye has warned health workers against ever thinking of staging any form of strike and threatened that he would deal with any such attempts with lethal force.

The Burundian leader issued the warning during the official launch of a marathon overhaul of Burundi’s health sector with the aim of improving health care in the highly isolated country.

Ndayishimiye inaugurated Saturday, September 11, 2021 the Musigati communal hospital in Bubanza province. It is the first hospital to be inaugurated as part of the program to transform health centers into municipal hospitals.

The Director General of OBUHA (Office Burundais de l’Urbanisme, de l’Habitat et de la Construction) explained to the President that out of the first batch of 37 municipal hospitals, 35 have already been completed.

With the transformation of the Musigati health center into a municipal hospital, the OBUHA added two new blocks, a pediatric ward and an adult hospital ward.

The Ministry of Public Health has assigned two additional doctors, native of the municipality, with a batch of drugs and medical equipment.

With the transformation of the Mabayi health center into a communal hospital, the OBUHA added two new units, a pediatric unit and an adult hospital unit.

During the inauguration of the Musigati communal hospital, First Lady Angeline Ndayishimiye offered gifts to mothers who had just given birth.

After the inauguration of the Musigati municipal hospital, Ndayishimiye congratulated the population of this municipality for this infrastructure equipped with medical equipment worth 400 million BIF.

He asked the staff to manage this material with due diligence and to provide quality health care to the population without ever threatening to go on strike.

President Ndayishimiye called on the population to protect themselves against diseases by respecting the rules of hygiene.

He has declared that he is the leader of the development.

In his strategy to fight against poverty Evariste Ndayishimiye said that it is necessary to put in place a leadership committed to serving the people, not corrupt.

“We must promote good governance, education and good health of the population, fight laziness and mobilize the entire population to work,” he said.

The Head of State affirmed that Burundi has all the assets to get out of poverty. He explained that Burundi has a subsoil rich in minerals, abundant water, fertile land and a Burundian people are intelligent. “Everyone just needs to get to work,” He said.

To fight against unemployment, the Head of State revealed that the government has placed particular emphasis on technical training. This is how a training center is being built in Karusi province. This is where young people can acquire a variety of professional skills that will enable them to compete in the labor market or to create their own jobs.

In his message on the occasion of the inauguration of the Musigati hospital, the Head of State protested against the embezzlement that characterized the construction of the Mpanda hydroelectric dam, whose work stopped while the state had already spent 50 billion FBu and the Kajeke hydro-agricultural dam, the work of which was poorly executed.

For the Head of State, the money spent on these two infrastructures must be recovered and returned to the public treasury. For the President of the Republic Evariste Ndayishimiye, the corrupt, the lazy and the thieves of public funds no longer have a place in Burundian society.

Baho International Hospital is once again under attack on social media users after one of its clients lost her life yesterday. She had undergone a minor surgery in the morning.

This comes months after the private health service provider was strongly criticized for its poor hygiene and lack of customer care towards its patients.

The backlash prompted the Ministry of Health to carry out a quick assessment into the complaints after which the hospital came out and admitted its shortcomings and asked for forgiveness and promised to work on the areas which were lacking.

A letter that was signed by the hospital’s Chairperson, Joseph Kayibanda, read, ‘’We would like to express our sincere apology to the public and especially our patients whom we have let down recently in customer care.
The health service provider that has been operating in Rwanda since 2015 has been in the media for mostly the wrong reasons and the most recent one came in yesterday after a lady up to now only known as Chantal went to the Nyarutarama based hospital for a simple family planning procedure but unfortunately lost her life.

Its most recent woes before the most recent one started on July 10,2021 when one dissatisfied citizen went to social media and raised a concern over failure to be attended to on a medical appointment that was scheduled for 10am but instead received it at 1pm.

”When you’re given a doctor’s appointment for 10am but told there are 8 people ahead of you with NO appointment,” Lucy Mbabazi tweeted and it was to this tweet that the hospital replied that if she had another urgent program to attend after meeting the doctor, she would have asked the customer care team to assist.

The issue took a twist when the hospital told local media outlets that the patient’s complaint was misplaced and that the probe would be a good witness to the quality of service delivery and it was after this defiance from the hospital that different social media users shared their own experiences at the hospital including foreigners.

This attracted the attention of various prominent Twitter users including RDB CEO Clare Akamanzi.

”How will you change if you can’t even be humble enough to take feedback or comment after thoroughly investigating the complaints? this false confidence isn’t good for service delivery,” she said on Twitter.

In yesterday’s case after the death incidence, different Twitter users went into a frenzy as they expressed their disgust towards the continued poor services of the hospital even after an investigation into their complaints by the Ministry of Health.  The hospital neither denied nor accepted the allegations and they only said, ‘’@BahoIntHospital would like to present its sincere condolences to the family and friends of Chantal.

May her soul Rest In Peace. The case is under investigation by competent authority, we shall let you know further outcome. Thank you,’’ on their Twitter account.

The Rwanda Investigations Bureau Spokesperson Thierry Murangira was contacted for a comment on the ongoing investigations about the incident and he said that a few arrests have been made and a lot can’t be communicated as of now as investigations are still on going.

“Yes! RIB has arrested Dr. Gaspard Ntahonkiriye (Gynecologist) and Dr. Alfred Mugemanshuro (Anesthesiologist) from BAHO International Hospital as part of the ongoing investigation into the death of a female patient (54 year) who died on 09 September, 2021.”

He went on to say that findings of this investigation would be communicated later.

The Rwanda Development Board on behalf of Rwanda has signed a collaboration agreement with the International Finance Cooperation (IFC) that will see developments in the vaccine manufacturing capacity and contribute to expanding vaccine production in Africa.

The IFC will be responsible for conducting diagnostic and feasibility studies to see to it that the right technical and policy frameworks required to establish a world-class vaccine manufacturing supply chain in the country are in place for production of vaccines to be used both locally and for export across the continent.

This new partnership will aim on supporting the country’s recent announcement that it will be working in close association with BioNTech a leading biotech company and the Kenup Foundation to explore establishing end-to-end manufacturing capabilities for the Mran vaccines.

In addition to this, other potential vaccine and pharmaceutical production facilities that include a fill-and-finish facility are expected to share a location with BioNTech in the Kigali Special Economic Zone.

RDB’s Deputy CEO said, ‘’Rwanda aims to produce high quality vaccines for the African market. A production facility like the one envisaged in this collaboration agreement advances this objective. We are please to have IFC as a strategic partner.’’

In his remarks, IFC’S Acting Regional Industry Director for Manufacturing, Agribusiness and Services in the Middle East and Africa Samuel Dzotefe noted that, ‘’A resilient Africa needs to develop and maintain its own reliable vaccine supply and health industry. This partnership with RDB is a vital step towards helping Africa build vaccine manufacturing capacity to respond to Covid and future pandemics’’