Rwanda on mission to develop medical tourism, ensure country remains safe, inviting

Rwanda’s National Strategy for Transformation (2017–2024) indicates that the service sector is expected to be the most important engine of the economy. The seven-year government program states that the service sector will be boosted through increased tourism.

While Rwanda is known for eco-tourism, the country has also been paving the way for medical tourism development. The eastern African country which has successfully reduced the infant mortality rate by over 60 percent plans to expand the provision of better healthcare and develop medical tourism through the attraction of state-of-the-art and specialised medical facilities.

The global medical tourism market is projected to grow from $13.98 billion in 2021 to $53.51 billion in 2028.

According to Medical Tourism Association, around 14 million people globally travel to other countries for medical care. About 40 per cent of the people travel to seek medical care owing to the availability of advanced technology coupled with highly trained professionals.

In 2014, Rwanda Development Board (RDB) firmly believed that there was a way for Rwanda to compete in medical tourism including wellness tourism. The Board’s analysis revealed that diagnostics, cardiology, oncology and nephrology are the highest in demand specialties in the region.

Rwanda, one of the first nations in Africa to launch the delivery of critical medical supplies using drones, is pushing hard to satisfy the regional demand. The government also aims to ensure that the country remains a safe and inviting destination. President Paul Kagame is always looking for partners with whom to work to improve the lives of Rwandans and, by extension, Africans.

Butaro Hospital in Northern province is serving Rwanda and surrounding countries: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and elsewhere in Africa with patients heading there for cancer treatment.

King Faisal Hospital, in Kigali, is a multi-specialty hospital providing specialized health care in East and Central Africa. The hospital has specialties in neurosurgery, Cardio-thoracic surgery, orthopedic surgery, cardiology, nephrology, pediatrics and its subspecialties, radiology and imaging, pathology, and other medical subspecialties.

Rwanda, a country internationally recognised for its successes in offering universal access to health, is building a pipeline of key medical specialty skills and capacity. This will be achieved through increasing the number of students studying medicine, and the number of doctors specializing in key areas.

The country’s leadership is doing its best to go beyond universal primary care and develop world-class specialty healthcare services; encourage investment by specialized healthcare services providers through targeted investment promotion; and positioning Rwanda as a specialized regional medical tourism hub.

Investments will be needed to create incentives for local and international medical schools to ensure that the country has sufficient quality and quantity of health care professionals.

Medical tourism contributes to economic growth while ensuring that the country’s key goal of providing better quality of life for all Rwandans is met through the provision of better healthcare.

Medical tourism was first categorized as a commercial activity by the International Union of Travel Officials in 1973; recognizing the type of tourism as a form of international trade in services.

A country that offers medical tourism services to foreign patients – the destination country – is therefore the exporter while the patient’s home country is the importer of services.

Rwanda, an economy that was ravaged by the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, has achieved major transformations. The speed with which it achieved this is evidence that so much more can be done to tackle the remaining challenges and realise the country’s development aspirations.