The success of Rwanda in providing health care to its poor has
drawn the attention of the international community and has inspired
a new program at Harvard University.
CORRECTION APPENDED
The success of Rwanda in providing health care to its poor has
drawn the attention of the international community and has inspired
a new program at Harvard University.
Rwanda was one of the poorest countries in the world in 1994,
after a genocide claimed more than 500,000 lives and left the
country with little or no access to medical services. In 2005, it
began to rebuild its infrastructure. Now, according to the Rwandan
Ministry of Health, the country provides health care and insurance
to more than 90 percent of its population, inspiring medical leaders
from around the globe to visit the African country to study its
transformation.
Now, the Harvard School of Public Health is working with the
Rwandan Ministry of Health to teach a course called Global Health
Delivery in the village of Rwinkwavu twice a year.
"Rwanda is honestly starting to change the face of global
health," said Dr. Paul Farmer, one of the founders of Partners in
Health, a nongovernmental organization that works in Rwanda and
other poor countries. He is also the chairman of Harvard's
Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and one of the
faculty members for its course in Africa.
In February, 30 African medical leaders met with Harvard faculty
at the training and research center in Rwinkwavu to discuss the
challenges of delivering health services in resource-poor settings.
Six of these students were trained to become faculty members who
will teach future classes, with the next sessions scheduled for
July.
During the weeklong course, students and professors discussed
case studies and conducted field visits throughout Rwanda. Because
all the students are currently health workers -- most are employees
of the Rwandan Health Ministry -- they are able to immediately apply
what they learned in the Harvard course to their daily work.
Initially, the course was held only on Harvard's campus, where
students would discuss case studies on the difficulties of
delivering medical services internationally.
But the course changed in February. A world away from Cambridge,
Massachusetts, health professionals in Rwinkwavu discuss the same
case studies. They also participate in live cases, in which students
and faculty members interview doctors, nurses or other health
workers, like the head of an organization working to deliver AIDS
medications to the poor in Rwanda, to ask them about the challenges
of their work. Visits to Rwandan clinics and hospitals allow
students to see health care in action, and give them the opportunity
to collaborate with other professionals to discuss solutions.
"To be a good global health provider, it's good for students to
see what others have done," Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, who is both the
Rwandan health minister and a Harvard faculty member, said by
telephone.
Seeing potential for the course outside of Massachusetts, Dr.
Binagwaho worked with Partners in Health to bring the Harvard
curriculum to her home country.
"We hope to have students come from around the world and learn
from them as well, and also have the students learning from each
other, because they are all coming from countries where there are
things ongoing," she said.
There is now also a new Harvard degree, a Masters in Medical
Sciences and Global Health Delivery, which will begin this autumn.
Plans to offer a similar degree in Rwanda are under way.
"Above all, you need people who actually do the delivery to
tackle the problems," Dr. Farmer said. He stressed the importance of
working not only in Africa, but also with African health care
leaders. "Not everyone has the privilege to make it to Harvard --
and we needed to reach out," he added.
The Harvard course is one of the first that focuses exclusively
on the challenges of delivering health care. …
