After the oncology support center was launched, cancer patients from across the nation and beyond who travel to Butaro Hospital for their daily chemotherapy can now breathe a sigh of relief.
Among other facilities, the facility will provide housing and psychological support for hospital patients who have been traveling to the clinic for therapy – some daily.
The center was inaugurated on Wednesday at the premises of Butaro Hospital in Burera District and was built $350,000 (approximately Rwf320 m) by Health Partners in cooperation with three other American-based partners.
According to authorities, the facility will provide cancer patients with a broad range of facilities they have not earlier received because the current facility was too tiny to accommodate all patients.
Some of them who came from afar had to spend nights on the veranda and in the compound of the hospital because the next day they were unable to travel back for treatment.
“Some patients who came for their daily chemotherapy have to spend two nights and our ward in the hospital was not enough,” said Dr. Joel Mubiligi, the country director, Partners in Health.
Butaro Hospital’s oncology program has distinct departments including a diagnostic laboratory and an infusion center providing chemotherapy.
“This support centre as its name suggests will support all these systems; it provides accommodation, mental health support, counselling and psycho-social support for the patients who come here for their daily chemotherapy,” he noted.
Thanks to the new facility, Mubiligi pledged enhanced cancer therapy center facilities.
The support center for oncology can accommodate up to 70 patients.
Cancer patients currently undergoing medical treatment at Butaro Hospital welcomed the facility, emphasizing that the many inconveniences they faced need to be resolved.
“All services here (at the hospital) are good except accommodation where we sometimes sleep on concrete due to a shortage of beds, but with this new centre we are happy that we will all be accommodated during our treatment,” said Appolinalie Mbarushimana, a breast cancer patient from Nyanza District.
Speaking at the case, co-founder of Health Partners Dr. Paul Farmer said the only way to decrease cancer fatalities is to incorporate prevention, diagnosis and therapy, emphasizing the vital position of family members in the process.
“This work is hard and it’s impossible without partnership; it is so hard under patients and their families to go through even uncomplicated cancer care,” He noted
Farmer praised those who contributed to the new facility, stating this is going a long way to assist patients with cancer cope with the disease.
“This building itself is beautiful and can positively influence the outcome of their (patients’) treatment. This can bring a difference to what happens to a patient after diagnosis. Any successful intervention has to involve this collaboration between the builders and caregivers,” he said.
Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Director-General of the Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC), pointed out that the country’s goal in the next five years is to eradicate HPV and HBV viruses that cause cervical and hepatitis diseases respectively, the incidence of which now stands at 8%.
He praised Partners in Heath’s contribution to the country’s fight against cancer.
“The Government of Rwanda appreciates chemotherapy services that are offered here with accommodation that is rendered to patients at free of charge,” said Nsanzimana.
RBC figures show that 10,000 Rwandans are infected with fresh cancer annually with top-up cervical cancer, breast cancer, hepatitis (B&C) and prostate cancer. It’s while seven thousand instances go undetected.
“We are calling on the Rwandans to prevent lifestyles that expose them to cancers, mainly eating appropriately the balanced diet and doing routine physical exercises,” he said.
Butaro Hospital gets approximately 400 patients with cancer on a monthly basis and since 2012 more than 8,700 have been received at the hospital.
10% of patients come from outside the nation, with the bulk coming from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to hospital statistics.