Rwanda and Oregon:
Brice kindly posted some statistics for Rwanda under comments for the 'Changing environments' post... I thought it might be interesting to do an Oregon comparison:
- not all statistics are directly comparable, but it does allow for some...
Rwanda is an East African country with an area of 26,338 square kilometers.
Oregon is a US state with an area of 251,419 sq km.
Rwanda has a total population of 8.2 million and a Per Capita GNP of 250US $.
Oregon has a total population of 3.7 million and a per capita G(S)P of 39,649 US $.
Rwanda shares borders with four other countries which are: Uganda in the North, Burundi in the South, Tanzania in the East and Democratic Republic of Congo in the West.
Oregon shares borders with the U.S. states of Washington to the North, California and Nevada to the South, and Idaho to the East.
Health care delivery and Medical Personnel:
Rwanda: Doctors: 1/50,000 inhabitants
Oregon: Doctors: 12.1/50,000 people (from 2.42 per 1,000 people)
Rwanda: Nurses: 1/3,900 inhabitants
Oregon: 30.8/3,900 residents (from 790.4 RNs per 100,000 population in Oregon in 2000)
Rwanda: 17% of Nurses in rural areas
Oregon: don't know
Rwanda: Access to Health care facilities : 37.9%
Oregon: Uninsured: 15.9%
Rwanda: Life expectancy at birth 52.73 years
Oregon: Life expectancy at birth 77.9 years
Infant and Maternal Mortality:
Rwanda:
• Infant mortality: 86/1000
• Under 5 Mortality: 152/1000
• Under 5 years severe malnutrition: 19.4%
• Maternal mortality: 750/ 100,000
• Assisted deliveries: 48.6%
Oregon:
• Infant mortality: 5.9 per 1,000 in 2005
• Under 5 Mortality: n/a
• Under 5 years severe malnutrition: n/a
• Maternal mortality: n/a
• Assisted deliveries: n/a
HIV/AIDS and other epidemics:
Rwanda: • HIV prevalence: 3%
Oregon: HIV prevalence: 0.13%
Rwanda: TB (2003): 6,046 cases in the country
Oregon: 81 cases in 2006
Rwanda: • Malaria admission cases in hospitals 36.8%
Oregon: n/a
Education:
Rwanda:
Concerning medical education, there is one Faculty of Medicine/School of Medicine within the National University of Rwanda (http://www.nur.ac.rw/ ). 65 to 100 students are admitted every year; our medical education covers 6 years, the final year being entirely devoted to clinical rotations. Other medical personnel are trained at Kigali Health Institute: http://www.khi.ac.rw/
Oregon:
Has one academic health institution - Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon (http://www.ohsu.edu). Approximately 115 medical students admitted each year; generally a 4 year course. Nursing school admits about 300 students per year.
1 comment:
Hello Everyone,
I am Brice JABO from Rwanda.
We have noticed changes in Rwanda that are affecting health care and health care delivery in different ways:
Starting by political ones: we have noticed a strong political will to improve our health care system; as you may know, one of the biggest public health problems in our countries is that people do not consult health care centers when they are in need, one of the reasons behind that is that health care services are expensive and people can not afford them, it is in this regard that the government has introduced a universal health care insurance system and since its introduction there has been a steady increase in the number of people consulting health care centers.
There is also a demonstrated interest In prevention programs but in this area there is still an luck of organization and coordination that would make those programs more effective.
Physically: our country has been hit by small scale floods and earthquakes and even though in both cases the management was good it showed us the necessity of establishing a coordination center for emergencies.
In the social domain there has been changes too, with a better empowerment of women through girls education and establishment of laws that protects women’s rights which makes it easier for them to decide on their health but still a sensitization of the general public on those issues can bring an increased response.
Economically there is still a lot to be done, especially in keeping prices in line with people’s purchasing power as a steady increase in priced has been going on in the last few years and this leave the majority of people with little or no resources to deal with health related issues.
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