ABOUT THE EVENT

Following the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, the country faced a national health crisis, with more than 80 percent of its hospitals destroyed and a majority of health professionals lost during the genocide. Rwanda’s Ministry of Health, in partnership with many stakeholders, implemented comprehensive health-sector reforms to strengthen the public health system, including construction of health facilities to decentralize access to lower levels of care and expand universal health coverage. The Society for Family Health (SFH), the largest nonprofit provider of primary care in Rwanda, was among the critical forces in contributing to rebuilding the country’s health system, establishing more than 300 health posts across remote areas of the country that make primary health services accessible to more than 5 million people.

In this Think Global event, Manasseh Wandera, SFH’s executive director for Rwanda and South Sudan, will discuss the key steps in restoring healthcare delivery and access in the country, as well as ongoing strategies to expand access to care across the East African region. This in-person presentation, coinciding with Wandera’s tenure as a visiting scholar with DGHI’s Center for Policy Impact in Global Health, will be followed by a panel discussion of Rwanda’s healthcare renaissance and current challenges facing the country and its neighbours. Topics will include healthcare delivery systems, workforce development, and the use of data and AI to accelerate diagnostic accuracy and improve patient outcomes.

SPEAKERS

Emily Smith, PhD, (moderator) is an Assistant Professor with the Duke Global Health Institute with research interests including children’s global surgery, health-systems strengthening in low-income countries, health economics, and global health policy. As an epidemiologist, she has worked with her in-country partners at the Edna Adan Hospital in Somaliland for the past 5 years on projects related to children’s surgical care, including defining the epidemiologic burden, assessing poverty trajectories among families with a child’s surgical need, geospatial analyses, and healthcare infrastructure. Prior to DGHI, her work at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) involved utilizing epidemiological methods, mathematical modeling techniques and cost-effectiveness research to determine effectiveness of various testing strategies among HIV exposed infants in sub-Saharan Africa.

Barnabas Alayande, MBBS, MBA, MPH, is a specialist general surgeon, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Co-Chair of the Center for Equity in Global Surgery at the University of Global Health Equity in Butaro, Rwanda. He is secretary general of the Pan-African Surgical Healthcare Forum, and Co-Chair of the Academic Advancement Committee for the Association for Academic Surgery. He has an academic background in medicine and surgery, general surgery specialty training, public health, business administration, and theology. He holds certificates in global surgery from Harvard and Oxford, certification in Executive Leadership in Global Surgery from University of Cape Town, and Health Professions Education from the Harvard Macy Institute. He contributes to the development and delivery of novel, equity-driven, contextualized, technical and non-technical surgical curricula at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the sub-Saharan African contexts. 

Maggie Conlan is a current second year MsGH student at the Duke Global Health Institute. She recently travelled to Kigali, Rwanda as part of her master's thesis work. While in Kigali she met with the Society for Family Health (SFH) team to finalize plans and coordinate next steps for a collaborative research project in partnership with the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke and spent time visiting health posts, learning about SFH’s ongoing and upcoming projects, and meeting with nurse entrepreneurs. Her research focuses on patient preferences in healthcare seeking choices and increasing patient utilization of health posts in coordination with SFH.

Eleanor Stevenson, PhD, RN, FAAN is a clinical professor of Nursing at Duke University School of Nursing. Her area of inquiry focuses on the multidimensional psychological stress women who have conceived pregnancies via in-vitro fertilization experience as well as the adaptive behaviors of men with male-factor infertility. She is also engaged in inquiry about how men can increase access to primary care via female-facing care models such as infertility treatment and family planning. At Duke University, she teaches in the DNP, MSN, and ABSN programs and mentors baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral students who focus their inquiry and practice on fertility issues to advance science and clinical care.

Manasseh G. Wandera is the Executive Director of the Society for Family Health Rwanda (SFH), the largest national non-profit health organization operating in all 30 districts of Rwanda. Since 2012, he has led SFH’s growth in scope, partnerships, and health impact, advancing Universal Health Coverage through primary healthcare, social marketing, behavior change communication, and public health innovations. Under his leadership, SFH has partnered with government, UN agencies, donors, and NGOs to strengthen health systems, build over 300 health posts, support 90 health centers, and train more than 1,000 Community Health Workers—working towards a vision of 1,000 facilities in Rwanda and 100,000 across Africa. Mr. Wandera holds an MBA from Maastricht School of Management and advanced degrees in development studies and public administration. He lives in Kigali with his wife and four children.

This is a hybrid event with both in-person and remote attendance options. Attendance in person is encouraged. Lunch will be available.