Twenty-seven neurosurgery patients are set to be operated on next week at King Faisal Hospital-Kigali, many of them having endured a long wait for specialised medical care. The move, spearheaded by neurosurgeons, was preceeded by screenings of the pending cases both at the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali (CHUK) and King Faisal Hospital – Kigali. For three days last week, the neurosurgeons conducted a medical camp at CHUK during which they screened patients with relevant pending appointments from all over the country. They later moved the exercise to King Faisal Hospital where screened patients for two more days ahead of the surgical operations, scheduled between July 27 and 31. The exercise is part of the activities to mark five years of the Rwanda Neurosurgery Centre. Many patients are forced to wait for long before seeing a doctor, a situation that has now forced medics to create time to attend to special pending cases, according to Dr Emmy Agabe Nkusi, a neurosurgeon at King Faisal Hospital-Kigali. The long wait is largely down to insufficient number of doctors vis-à-vis the number of patients. There are only two neurosurgeons in Rwanda, a country of about 12 million people. Neurosurgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and extra-cranial cerebrovascular system (Wikipedia). Neurosurgical patients were notified of the screenings and subsequent operations through district hospitals across the country. Dr Nkusi and his colleague Dr Severien Muneza of CHUK were part of the team of neurosurgeons that conducted screenings at CHUK. At least 48 patients were screened out of which 27 would be operated on later this month, doctors said. Dr Nkusi said there were many patients in many public hospitals that have difficulty meeting with specialist doctors which prompted their initiative. “This is exactly why I did neurosurgery in the first place, to serve the people. The only thing we can do as doctors is to give back to patients, being a doctor is not about business, it’s all about caring for patients,” he said. So why now? “You know that there is a backlog of patients waiting to be treated, so as surgeons we decided to mark the five years of Rwanda neurosurgical centre by attending to patients from across the country,” he explained. Theoneste Bizimungu, who had brought her sick daughter from Rulindo District, said: “We were referred to CHUK from Rulindo and given an appointment in August but sadly we didn’t receive any results so we didn’t know what was actually happening to our child.” Bizimungu’s one-year and eight-month daughter has an enlarged head and hasn’t been able to walk since birth. He said he was more than glad when he received a phone call asking him to head to the hospital to meet doctors. “I was very happy and even though I had trouble with transport reaching here, I did my best to bring my daughter for treatment. Indeed, it is a very good gesture because even those with distant appointments managed to see doctors; I believed lives will be saved, thanks to this initiative,” Bizimungu added. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
