Mahama (Rwanda) : poor quality of health services

In the Mahama camp in Rwanda, refugees denounce poor quality of services provided in dispensaries. Only urgent cases are handled. This happens at a time when the new manager of the health component had promised to make improvements. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

In health centers in Mahama camp, there are long queues of patients waiting to be treated. They denounce the poor quality of the medical service.

“Few patients are taken in and only critical cases are given priority. I went to the Mahama II zone health post managed by Save the Children. There were more than 60 people waiting to be served since the day before that day, and had it not been for my child who vomited in the presence of the nurses, I was not going to be received”, laments a Burundian refugee.

The concerned ended up referring to community leaders to take care of this situation which she considers “unacceptable”. She sent a message to a WhatsApp group of zone and village chiefs, a message which was quickly relayed and which prompted these leaders to refer in turn to the UNHCR and the NGO Save the Children.

Refugees who spoke to SOS Médias Burundi ask the UNHCR to ensure that the health sector is well managed.

Since the beginning of this year, the health sector has been managed by Save the Children, replacing the NGO Alight, in Mahama camp.

Refugees hoped for a little better because Alight had been conspicuous by its incompetence, especially during the Covid-19 period, according to beneficiaries.

“We want things to change and for there to be a difference with the previous manager. Alight staff were giving us a very bad service while taking care of ten villages in zone I. So as it is Save the Children that has to take care of all the zones, it must demonstrate the added value“, react Burundian refugees.

The UNHCR spoke of change with a view to “improving the provision of quality services in the field of health” and said it hoped that “irregularities will be corrected”.

For the time being, Burundian and Congolese refugees recommend that the UN agency carry out regular monitoring of this key sector.

The main reason for the poor service is said to be that Save the Children does not have enough staff and was not prepared to take care of the whole camp, which is growing faster with the arrival of new Congolese refugees. This NGO has promised to recruit in the coming days in order to improve the quality of its services in the health centers at the Mahama camp, which must also accommodate the surrounding Rwandan community of the said camp.

The Mahama camp, located in the far east in Rwanda, currently hosts more than 50,000 refugees, mostly Burundians.