Rwanda: prison officials meet to improve health services

02-05-2012 News Release 12/93

Kigali (ICRC) – Officials from 14 Rwandan prisons are meeting in Kigali today to discuss improvements to the country’s prison health system. This is the second national prison health seminar that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Rwandan internal security ministry have offered.

"During the last two decades, the ICRC has shifted from a substitution mode, in which the ICRC provided prison health care itself, to a true partnership with the ministry of internal security and the Rwanda Correctional Service," explained Jacques Villettaz, who heads the ICRC’s Rwanda delegation. "Currently, the ICRC is working with the prison administration to strengthen human resources and management capacity, particularly within the engineering and health sectors of the Rwanda Correctional Service."  

Prison governors, prison health and welfare managers and others will be discussing HIV and the work of the Rwanda National Tuberculosis Programme in prisons. They will also be learning about technical support for prison health services, mental health in prisons, prison assessments and coordinating prison nutrition.

For further information, please contact:
Emmanuel Kagimbura, ICRC Kigali, tel: +250 78830 05 09