Editor,

I thank Sunny Ntayombya for raising this issue (refer to the opinion, "Mutabazi was saved, but who couldn’t be?” in The New Times, January 14), especially that he’s of no medical background.

Here’s my take:

Insurers: Ideally these companies should set different plans, say bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and that would mean that people will have to pay differently and, sadly, benefit differently. I think it’s practically impossible to send all patients who need to go out of the country for these kinds of medical care.

Doctors: As stated in the article, no Rwandan doctor is trained to carry out such kinds of operations in the country – for understandable reasons. First, our medical school doesn’t offer that kind of training; second, we do not have infrastructure that would support such operations here.

To the Ministry of Health; you will be surprised if you come to know the amount of money spent on sending people abroad for different medical care services, including cancers, kidney, heart, liver diseases, among others. It’s high time we started putting in place the requisite infrastructure to handle such cases at home. That would also require us to send a few doctors to train abroad, who would, in turn, train others upon return.

Otherwise, what would be the reason for doing such courses? To return home and do nothing? This has nothing to do with the medical knowledge of our doctors but rather lack of appropriate infrastructures.

Nonetheless, Rwanda has made significant strides in the health sector over the years. It’s important to appreciate how far we’ve come as a country; at least we have doctors who can deal with other medical conditions. We have been crawling and are now started to take simple steps, as is the case in all other sectors.

Let’s hope for the best.

Kabera

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I would like add that we need to use information mediums we currently enjoy in Rwanda to educate our people about the beauty and necessity to become organ donors.

Rwandan culture is still immature when it comes to organs donation. Many folks are buried with their healthy organs that would otherwise be life-saving for many, were they harvested legally and properly.

I offered my organs to two Kigali hospitals in case I die, but they didn’t even know what I was talking about, and my family called me a mentally challenged person, just because I came up with that idea of donating my organs in case of my passing.

I’ll continue to bring up this controversial idea in our society, the idea of donating my organs to those who are still breathing; may be some day my own family will get it, and the rest will join the cause.

Abdul Rahman Ntaganda