Members of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have citied irregularities in the implementation of the health insurance scheme, Mutuelle de Sante. Appearing before the Committee this week, the minister of health, Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, was informed that some medical personnel ask the scheme’s subscribers to come along with their own equipment when seeking medical help in public hospitals. The revelations were made during the minister’s appearance before the Committee to explain issues in a special value-for-money audit report of the health insurance scheme for 2009-2010. The lawmakers, who said they witnessed such incidents, said that even though Rwanda’s health system was considered a global model, it did not mean that there were no challenges.Hon. Jean Baptiste Musemakweli said: “The minister has told us that there are enough medical equipment and drugs, but recently, I visited a patient at CHUK who was set to undergo surgery and I found out that the doctors were requesting for many things from the patient, including various surgical utensils. I got a bit uncomfortable. I wondered whether that was the practice every other day or simply an isolated incident. I asked around and I was informed that when one is going to be operated on, they are required to bring their own equipment.“Minister, you probably do not know about it, but it is happening. Patients are being asked to come with their own surgical material.”PAC Chairperson Juvenal Nkusi also weighed in, stressing the need for more improvement in the functioning of the scheme.“Many things have been mentioned about Mutuelle, but let’s also consider the manner in which patients are received during the process of transfers. The service is not good. And honourable minister, these are things we have seen with our own eyes.“A lot of improvement is still needed in the scheme for it to work as it was initially conceptualized and what the beneficiaries expect from it,” he said. Dr. Binagwaho told lawmakers that it was important for any patient who experiences such situations to come out and report the matter.“It is not acceptable. We are going to look into this matter and it is important to understand that there is no official decision allowing this to be going on. To ask people to bring their own material is not official policy. So, we are going to assess what happened,” she promised. When contacted, CHUK boss Dr. Theobald Hategekimana declined to comment on the matting, saying he was in a meeting.The special audit report by the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) was commissioned to assess whether the implementation of the insurance scheme was undertaken in a manner that would ensure its sustainability and increase financial accessibility to its members.
