To See the Beauty of Life
Goal
The project aims to:
a) support the Rwandan system’s planning in ophthalmic health, “leaving no one behind”;
b) support the State training program to train the best ophthalmology graduates on the African continent;
c) promote and verify the effectiveness of activities in adopting the best medical protocols, implementing administrative processes, reporting, and quantitative measurements to ensure the efficiency of the eye care health system and be recognized as the best model for the African continent;
d) replicate, once these objectives are achieved, the Rwandan health model in other African countries.
Development mode
Signing of a five-year memorandum of understanding, renewable for another five years, which defines a series of activities that the Rwandan Ministry of Health and the Foundation intend to implement over ten years, starting in 2019.
Since the beginning of the project, the Foundation in Rwanda has funded:
a) the “Performance Based Financing” program;
b) the “Supply of Ophthalmic Equipment“;
c) the “Riio School of Ophthalmology“; and
d) “scholarships” to Rwandan students.
Performance-Based Financing (PBF)
A national monetary incentive system aimed at public health and hospital facilities to promote excellence in medical services provided to the population. As of 2019, the Rwandan Ministry of Health, in developing the National Strategic Plan for Eye Health, has included the PBF model as a strategy to increase the quality-of-service delivery in the ophthalmic field.
This PBF model will help to identify eye diseases early throughout the country and promote appropriate management at the health centre and hospital level. Through public health facilities, health care providers will be incentivized and remunerated according to the PBF procedure manual, with the achievement of the indicators defined by the PBF eye care model. Fondazione Leonardo Del Vecchio Rwanda supports the PBF program through its funding.
Supply of Ophthalmic Equipment
The initiative, launched in 2021, aims to provide new ophthalmologic equipment to 38 Rwandan public health facilities (35 district hospitals and three university hospitals), intending to make them operational in the short term and self-sufficient in the medium to long term in diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical areas.
Fondazione Leonardo Del Vecchio Rwanda purchased 381 automated refractors/keratometers (AKR750), electron microscopes, surgical sets, and advanced equipment for optical coherence computed tomography eye scans (OTC 500) and intraocular ultrasound (A and B SCAN).
The distribution of the equipment, by the Rwandan Ministry of Health, began on April 11, 2022, and was completed at the end of July of the same year.
Fondazione Leonardo Del Vecchio Rwanda was also responsible for providing training courses to medical staff at these 38 facilities to provide the know-how required to use the new equipment.
Fondazione Leonardo Del Vecchio Rwanda, in collaboration with the Rwandan Ministry of Health, developed the training course for local health personnel, to transfer the required knowledge to use the new digital equipment.
School of Ophthalmology
Riio is an ophthalmology graduate school founded in 2011 by two ophthalmologists living in Kigali, Dr. John Nkurikiye and Dr. Wanjiku Ciku Mathenge, respectively, as the first postgraduate ophthalmology course in medicine.
Sharing the same purpose, Fondazione Leonardo Del Vecchio Rwanda decided to collaborate with RIIO – School of Ophthalmology by signing a partnership to establish a teaching hospital.
The School will be housed within the ophthalmic center of excellence that Fondazione Leonardo Del Vecchio Rwanda is building.
During the renovations, the Foundation decided to fund the school’s ongoing expenses (e.g., rent, utilities, maintenance).
Scholarships
Fondazione Leonardo Del Vecchio Rwanda has decided to allocate up to four scholarships per year to enable talented young Rwandans to study and specialize in ophthalmology.
Each scholarship covers all costs necessary to complete the four years of study.
Partner
Rwandan Ministry of Health (MoH)