US Congressmen visit Butaro Hospital in Rwanda.
Posted on Sep 12, 2011
In early September a visiting delegation of US Congressmen toured PIH’s flagship Butaro Hospital, a state-of-the-art facility run in partnership with the Rwandan Ministry of Health.
Congressmen and USAID representatives tour PIH's Butaro Hospital, run in partnership with the Ministry of Health.
PIH's Dr. Peter Drobac walks with Congressman Jim McDermott.
The delegation was in the sub-Saharan country to review Rwanda’s progress in improving maternal and child health. While visiting Butaro Hospital, Antoinette Habinshuti, deputy country director for PIH’s sister organization Inshuti Mu Buzima (IMB), explained how PIH’s community-based interventions have contributed to an 80 percent drop in childhood deaths throughout the region.
“We wanted to show the delegation that preventing maternal and child mortality means building hospitals and health centers—but it also means providing continued education to health professionals,” said Habinshuti. “We explained our community health worker model, which differs from traditional models where patients come to the health facilities.”
“This is one of the key factors that increased birth at health facilities, hence reducing maternal and child deaths,” said Habinshuti. “In the past few years, the under-five mortality rate has dropped from 152 per 1,000 children in 2005 to 27 per 1,000.”
Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-WA), Donald Payne (D-NJ) and Steve Cohen (D-TN), joined by USAID’s Carla Koppell, also visited an IMB health center and some of the families supported by the organization’s network of community health workers.
“I applaud the work that Partners In Health is doing and am encouraged by the positive results I witnessed,” said Congressman Payne after touring the facility.
