2 Rwandan doctors visiting Spokane

Doctors from Spokane and Rwanda are working together to improve health care in that African nation.

Teams of surgeons, nurses and other medical professionals from Spokane have traveled to the central African nation in the past year to treat patients and train people.

Now, two Rwandan doctors are working at Deaconess Medical Center to learn how U.S. hospitals function.

"We want to try to set up a model system based on how things are done here," said Dr. Aflodis Kagaba.

He and Dr. Dan Rudasingwa worked with Spokane cancer surgeon Dr. Ryan Holbrook to remove a melanoma from a patient's face and then performed a lymph node biopsy to ensure the cancer hadn't spread.

It's all part of the Ujamaa program. Ujamaa is Swahili for "extended family."

"We just thought it was very appropriate because we wanted to establish a partnership with local people," said Dr. Pam Silverstein, a Spokane obstetrician and gynecologist.

The Spokane physicians worked in rural health clinics in the poorest areas of Rwanda. Silverstein worked with nurses who deliver the vast majority of the nation's babies.

She taught them about complicated deliveries that can endanger the lives of mothers and newborns.

Eighty percent of Rwandan births are home deliveries, and the nation has a poor safety net in case something goes wrong. The nearest emergency rooms can be hours away, which leads to heartbreaking statistics: 86 babies out of every 1,000 born die within the first year of life. About 20 percent die before age 5.

Yet Rwanda has come a long way in the 15 years since civil war erupted into genocide. The killings of 800,000 people in about three months shocked the world.

Today the country is making great strides, said Rudasingwa. It is home to 10 million people with a total of about 280 doctors. That's about one doctor for every 36,000 people.

If such a ratio were applied to Spokane County, there would be 11 doctors here rather than the more than 1,000 who are practicing now.

"This is a country where the people are so eager to move forward," Silverstein said. "That willingness to learn and try new ideas is so important. I won't forget it."

Kagaba and Rudasingwa arrived in Spokane April 20 and will return to Rwanda May 8.

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Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com