4 years ago the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali CHUK has initiated the Surgical Outreach Program to decrease significantly the burden of long waiting list of patients for surgery interventions. Hundreds of patients benefited from the program at least 5.700 patients in total: From the starting point of the pilot phase of Surgical Outreach Program on 15th June 2015, the surgical team from CHUK has moved in different provincials hospitals to operate the patients who have a long term appointment near their home and relatives while they were in need to be treated as soon as possible.
Byumba Hospital is a new destination where 75 patients in 98 procedures benefited from the surgical interventions in five days. The good news is the average of 20 surgical procedures per day in the outreach agenda when in normal conditions the average is 7 per day. After utilizing 3 sites including Ruhengeri, Rwamagana and Ngoma Hospitals , at the beginning; The surgical outreach program extends its horizons to Shyira , Kibuye ,Ruri and Byumba hospitals to totalize 7 sites where this program sounds so well to be a “Success Story of sharing best practices in Surgery”.
CHUK Surgical Outreach is appreciated as much as it is suggested by the witnesses to become a new “Modus Operandi” in surgery for the coming years to reach more and more patients in rural remote areas where in health facilities there are no experienced surgeons and adequate surgical equipments. As long as the CHUK surgical team is dedi-cated to serve the population, some of them give testimonies: Cyinkuhire Marie Novensie from Rushaki Gicumbi District mother of a young boy who get operated on 08th October 2019 by that surgical team said that she is very proud of the program, also Gakire Boniface 61 years old from Muko Gicumbi district and Niyonsenga Helmenegilde from Mpanga Kirehe district , they are thankful.
The purpose of program is to move towards the patients, operate them near their home and relatives but also the knowledge transfer training the local medical staff. Esperance Muhawenimana Mission Coordinator at Byumba Hospital revealed the ownership to develop the program in local staff and the great satisfaction of the patients to get treatments at reduced cost. The A vivid exemple is a patient from Musanze who prepared 700.000Frws budget to be transferred at King Faical Hospital but got surgery operation for only 10.000frws. The extension of surgical outreach to new sites is to make sure only urgent and critical cases can be processed at CHUK so others elective cases in surgery can be processed in outreach medical missions. The waiting time has shifted from 1 or 2 years to only Four moths maximum to get surgical interventions for elective cases after the initiation of the Surgical Outreach Program.
Proud of the CHUK Medical Mission at Byumba Hospital the Director General recom-mended at least 2 up to 3 Surgical Outreach per year at this hospital to respond to major challenges they have especially in Orthopedic Surgery and ENT while Gynecology is doing well at Byumba Hospital.
To initiate this program The University Teaching Hospital of Kigali was facing a serious problem of patients who would wait for a long time appointment to get operated due to a big number of patients that CHUK would receive from other different hospitals day by day. Normally the doctors operate patients according to the appointment and to the pain they have. The management of CHUK would like to inform the public that teams of Surgeons and Anesthesiologists will continue to work closely to make sure the Surgical Outreach Pro-gram come successful whenever it will be necessary after proving the effectiveness of this program.