Since its inception in May 2024, the clinic has provided care to 23 patients, offering them new hope through this evidence-based treatment. Ketamine therapy is unique because it works differently from traditional antidepressants. While most medications take weeks to show results, ketamine can relieve symptoms within hours or days. It does this by stimulating new connections between brain cells, essentially “rewiring” areas of the brain that have been affected by long-term stress, trauma, or depression. Ketamine also helps regulate glutamate, a key chemical that influences mood, emotions, and thought patterns, allowing patients to break free from the cycle of persistent distress.

Ketamine is commonly used to induce anesthesia and sedation, but medical experts have shown that it can be used in the treatment of mental illnesses, showing changes in the patient after a few hours, while it usually takes much longer.

Through a partnership between King Faisal Hospital and the Kadima Neuropsychiatry Institute in San Diego, California, United States, psychiatrists and nurses have trained Faisal Hospital staff in the use of this treatment and will continue to provide supervision and treatment.

The state minister in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Yvan Butera, said that this treatment will complement the existing one but has the speciality of treating those who have not had other medicines that could help them recover.

He said, “Due to the history we have gone through, there are a number of Rwandans who still suffer from extreme sadness and depression, or even normal life, but the medicines that were already available did not help them. This is a new treatment in Rwanda and in the world in general. We took it at the beginning to help Rwandans who need this treatment to get it and we hope that it will yield tangible results.”

Dr. Yvan Butera urged those facing mental health issues to come forward and talk about their problems and to access these services to treat these illnesses because hiding them makes them worse and can even lead to illness or death.

The Chief Medical Officer at King Faisal Hospital, Dr. Sendegeya Augustin, said that some patients were given conventional medications to treat mental illnesses but they did not feel better, and then they were thinking about finding new ways to help them.

He said, “It is a treatment for mental illnesses, you know that people have very different problems such as severe depression, and you find that someone has thoughts of suicide, we give them medications but they do not heal.”

He continued, “We came to know that there is a drug that is used to induce paralysis and put patients to sleep, but when used in small doses it can help those patients with serious problems that have not been cured by conventional medications, we came to find that the Ketamine drug helps, so that is when we decided to start using it.”

So far, since this program began in May 2024, it has helped 23 patients, and the evaluation conducted by these hospitals has shown that they are gradually showing hope for a good recovery.

Statistics from the  RBC, for 2022/2023, showed that throughout the country at that time, about 3305 people were diagnosed with mental health problems every month.

The event, held on March 26, 2025, in Kigali, marked the second edition of the competition. Participants competed in two categories: Best Poster Presentation and Best Oral Presentation, with a special category reserved for those working at King Faisal Hospital. The first-place winners in each category received a prize of 600,000 Rwandan Francs (RWF).

Dr. Nkundimana Gerard, a kidney disease specialist, was recognized for his exceptional poster presentation. His study, which addresses ongoing healthcare challenges, focused on the dialysis filters used to purify the blood of kidney patients, which can sometimes become contaminated with microbes leading to infections.

Research helps doctors improve their practice by keeping up with the ever-evolving medical field,” Dr. Nkundimana explained. “By identifying problems early on, we can prevent complications for our patients.”

Dr. Sendegeya August, Chief Medical Officer at King Faisal Hospital, emphasized the importance of research in enhancing healthcare.

“Research enables us to contribute our knowledge and expertise to improve patient care. It is grounded in real issues faced by patients and the country,” he said.

“When we conduct research and clearly identify problems, we can work together to find solutions. This collaborative effort is more effective than working in isolation and allows us to share valuable insights.”

The research presented during the competition covered a range of medical topics, including kidney disease, childhood illnesses, heart conditions, and more, all aimed at finding solutions to pressing healthcare challenges.

During their last surgical mission in February this year, we engaged a few team members from the CROP team to discuss about what motivates them to come to King Faisal Hospital every quarter and what the work they do to treat patients with cardiac diseases means to them.

Myrrhisa White – Registered Nurse

I was approached last April by one of the retired nurses and one of our surgeons. They were excited to come to Rwanda to help teach cardiac surgery. For me, health equity is a very important value. So, to come to this beautiful country to help your hospital become independent is a fantastic opportunity. It is my second time here. It was definitely a refreshing and eye-opening experience to work with the Rwandan nurses, to work and learn from them and become a team together.

Each nurse has a different level of expertise and it’s really great to see them evolve. One nurse at the beginning was really shy and by the end of the mission she was hands-on and had such confidence to take care of the patients. You could see the growth personally and professionally. It is a rewarding thing to see.

Our goal here is focusing on the nurse program. We created a roadmap of the process of the patient, from their post-operative care to the time they are discharged to go home. We developed a document tool that we go through with the nurses.

A lot of the teaching happens at the bedside. From the moment the patient rolls into the room, the assessment, the different aspects of patient care and on top that, we have specialized topics we talk about including pacing, post-operative complications and we have created posters and PowerPoint presentations to go with the bedside training.

I think the success of this mission will be seeing the nurses that we are training effectively taking on the complex cases, and we’ll be standing on the sidelines watching them doing the job on their own and collaboratively interacting with the physicians. I would say we were floored by the kind of changes we found during this mission, including the new dedicated wing for Cardiovascular ICU.

Samantha Dacosta – Respiratory Therapist

The main difference between Canada and Rwanda is that we have respiratory therapists. Basically, a respiratory therapist is in charge of ventilation and that’s our job. We run blood work, we get the blood gas results, we make changes based on that, we put the tubes in and out of the mouth of the patient. I think the main difference in Rwanda is that a lot of patient duty falls on the nurses. Nurses in Rwanda and in Canada have a lot on their plate.

Additionally, my role in Canada is that I’m an educator. I work for the college there and I have students that I teach at the hospital. I really like teaching. The end goal here is that I’d love to see a respiratory therapist in Rwanda but right now the objective is to settle on having Rwandan nurses get as close as possible to respiratory therapists as they can. It’s definitely going to be a large undertaking in such a short period of time because I spent 3 years in school just learning to do that, very focused on the lungs.

I got involved in this mission because of the different roles I have been playing in Canada. My name got thrown in the hat and I was asked to come along, plus the gentleman who was a respiratory therapist during the last mission could not come. It was exciting for me as I love teaching.

In Canada we’re very lucky. Back home in Canada, we don’t have to pay for any treatment. I said if I can come here and donate my time for free for people to have these surgeries and for the staff here to learn how to take care of the patients in the future, it would be priceless for me and worth more than any paycheque I’ll ever get. My time is peanuts compared to what we’re hoping to establish at this hospital. It will be a starting point where we educate your nurse and your nurses educate others and it will trickle down to a point where you have an excellently running teaching hospital. We are just a small drop in a fountain and those ripples are going to take off and you will be able to run with it.

My experience so far is really good. I’m very hands-off when I’m teaching and with that I’m hoping to give the nurses here enough confidence to work on their own. I’m just standing right beside them observing their every step. I created an elaborate plan right from when the patient is waking up after surgery. Are they able to breathe on their own? Now that they’re ready to breathe on their own, what is the next step? Let’s do these checks. And standing there prompting and having them do everything, providing that security and having confidence in myself will enable them to have confidence in themselves as well.

It’s been great! Yesterday when we had our first patient extubated, we all had a round of applause and cheered for the team. It was wonderful! Any way I can participate as an educator is important to me. With the team of physiotherapists, we also discussed about post-operative pulmonary rehabilitation. How to have the lungs back functioning after surgery because it’s very painful for the patients after surgery.

Intensive Care Unit

I think it would help to reflect on our vision in the long run. There is no limit to the educative sessions we can have or the topics to discuss but in terms of strategic planning it is important to think of where we are going with these missions. Our vision is to have a cardiovascular sciences centre here, on the base of King Faisal Hospital, that will hopefully become a centre of excellence for cardiovascular sciences, research, education and quality assurance for the region. Not just for the country.

I think this is achievable and can be done through enough partnerships with universities/colleges. It takes a team. In that spirit, I’m hopeful we will not only educate providers to provide services but we will also train educators from Rwandan staff who will then take the next step to educate others across the country. The vision is to have a centre for cardiovascular sciences and then referral centres scattered across the country where educators from the hospital will be able to provide more trainings.

In terms of teaching philosophy, taking care of post-cardiac surgery patients takes a team. Any intensive care unit takes a team and that’s why we have nurses, respiratory therapists, physicians, physiotherapists, dietitians, pharmacists, etc. We have a number of experts in various fields who have to work together to take care of the patients to ensure an effective transition post-surgery.

We have to work on team dynamics and teamwork and that’s what we are trying to emphasize during this mission and future missions. One specific example is how do we run rounds? There is a dedicated time where we run around our patients, usually 2 or 3 times a day and structuring those rounds is not so much about what’s being said but rather how it’s said and organized. So, a resident physician can present a quick summary of the patient and the nurse can make an assessment from head to toe focusing on individuals and the physician can develop a plan moving forward and once those 3 people have spoken, the rest of the team can provide their inputs as well on the treatment course moving forward.

The ultimate goal is to have fellows running their own rounds at some point. I know in any institution hierarchy matters to get things running but if we are focused on working as a team, that hierarchy needs to be flattened. We have a patient; we have a mission and everybody has to contribute towards that mission. Everybody’s got a role to play and one person is not the centre of attention.

We are very aware the cases we work on are very complex, things can go wrong very quickly not because the nurses or physicians don’t know what they are doing or the patient is very sick but because emergency situations can get very overwhelming for individuals and it can become chaotic.

We have developed a training we call Crisis Resource Management and it is not only reserved for ICU care, it also happens in operating rooms, it happens in airplanes. It teaches us when we have disasters happen, what can be done right in that moment.

On Monday, we will start having low-fi simulation exercises. In-situ scenarios where we use dummies to train for emergency situations. For example, if a patient loses their pulse or have an abnormal heart rhythm, what would you do? We get team members to role-play. For example, in a certain situation if I have to use a defibrillator, where can I find it, once I find it, how will I turn it on and what mode will I use, and all that while the patient’s state is deteriorating? We try to recreate the pressure of the potential situation in a safe environment and see how people respond to it.

I can only dream that in a near future, we will have a simulation lab here, where we can use mannequins and actually do high-simulation exercises. It helps develop not only individual confidence but also confidence of working in a team. Once you have that confidence, routine stuff becomes easy because you know how well you can perform in a crisis situation.

Another part of the mission is program development. Since the cases we work on are complex, sometimes you can forget things. We have developed standardized admission notes so when the patient comes from the operating room, we have every step on where to take it from there written down. We also have a standardized order set to make sure we order the right medications, etc. With standardized processes, you move from chaos and crisis to standardization, confidence and the ability to perform on your own.

To summarize everything, The Canadian-Rwanda Open Heart Mission main three goals are team building, working inter-disciplinarily and developing teaching programs.

This initiative will allow Rwandans to access services locally that they previously had to seek abroad. Although a similar facility existed, it lacked advanced equipment like those now available at KFH.

The department is set to reduce the long waiting times for patients needing neurological care. For instance, Caraes Ndera Hospital has already scheduled some patients to return in September 2024.

Dr. Arlene Ndayisenga, the head of this department and a specialist in neurology, explained that this department was established in November 2022 after ten months of offering limited services due to the availability of only one diagnostic room.

Dr. Ndayisenga highlighted the collaboration with Ghent University Hospital over the past year to develop a state-of-the-art neurological, vascular, and brain disease department. This includes new services such as neurophysiological testing, which helps doctors assess brain function and determine necessary treatments.

The department conducts various tests including Electromyography (EMG) and Electroencephalography (EEG), which evaluate muscle activity and brain wave patterns, respectively. These tests are essential for diagnosing conditions like epilepsy, brain tumors, sleep disorders, and brain injuries.

Also available are Nerve Conduction Studies that examine nerve function outside the brain and spinal cord.

Dr. Ndayisenga noted that previously, such services were only available at Caraes Ndera Hospital, leading to lengthy wait times for patients. The new facilities at KFH are expected to reduce these delays and improve early diagnosis of brain-related diseases.

Given that many neurological and brain diseases are still not well understood in Africa, ongoing research is crucial. For example, epilepsy affects four in every hundred people, yet its causes remain under-studied.

Dr. Menelas Nkeshimana, the Head of Department of Health Workforce Development in the Ministry of Health, mentioned efforts to increase the number of local specialists. Currently, Rwanda has six Rwandan specialists and one foreign expert, with plans to expand to seventeen by 2028.

Dr. Nkeshimana emphasized the importance of training more specialists and spreading these services across the country, in line with the new department’s launch at KFH. This initiative will also boost research efforts, especially into conditions like neurocysticercosis, which was previously thought to be a major cause of epilepsy.

The training for specialists in this field requires over five years beyond a secondary degree, plus an additional two years for a Ph.D.

A modular operating theatre is a specially designed surgical room that is built using pre-fabricated, modular components.

This allows for flexibility in its design, enabling it to be customized and adapted to meet specific needs or requirements.It can be expanded or modified easily, depending on future needs, and is equipped with advanced medical technology for performing surgeries.The event was graced by the CEO of King Faisal Hospital Rwanda, alongside the CEO of Alvo Medical, the esteemed manufacturer of advanced Operating Room (OR) solutions.

Also in attendance were the Deputy CEO (DCEO) and the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of KFH, along with theatre users, including surgeons, anesthetists, and nursing staff, who will directly benefit from this cutting-edge facility.

The newly inaugurated modular theatre is equipped with the latest technology designed to support complex cardiac procedures, significantly enhancing patient safety and improving surgical outcomes.

In his address, the CEO of KFH reaffirmed the hospital’s commitment to advancing surgical care through innovative OR solutions.

He proudly announced that all 18 theatres planned in the hospital’s expansion project will be built to an even higher standard than the newly inaugurated one.

He emphasized that KFH will no longer construct theatres below this level of excellence.

The CEO of Alvo Medical expressed pride in partnering with KFH to deliver this modern, high-performance surgical environment.

He highlighted Alvo Medical’s commitment to providing innovative and sustainable medical infrastructure capable of serving hospitals for up to 20 years.

King Faisal Hospital has made significant strides in advancing healthcare. In May 2024, the hospital announced that over 300 patients, including children aged between 100 and 150, had undergone heart surgery in the past three years using cardiac catheterization procedure.

In January 2024, it was also reported that in the previous year, more than 175 patients had undergone surgery for heart related diseases, while 18 patients received kidney transplant services in Rwanda.

Besides, the foundation stone for the expansion of King Faisal Hospital, a project that will increase its capacity threefold was laid on July 22, 2024.

The expansion is expected to add nearly 88,000 square meters to the hospital, with a focus on treating rare diseases that are not commonly treated in Rwanda, such as heart surgeries, cancer treatments, and others.

The World Endoscopy Organisation (WEO) has recognised King Faisal Hospital and the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali (CHUK) as international centres of training in internal medicine.

There were only two such centres in Africa, one in Ethiopia and the other in Kenya.

With the new capacity, Rwanda’s major teaching hospitals will train specialists in internal medicine who are able to provide the region’s needed care in gastroenterology and hepatology, which focus on treatment of stomach and liver diseases.

In May this year, Rwanda started a gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship programme as part of the health ministry’s long-term capacity-building plan for health professionals’ training.

“The recognition of our two teaching hospitals by the World Endoscopy Organisation is another achievement to celebrate with firm commitment to keep going forward and meet international standards in medical education and patients care,” Dr Daniel Ngamije, the Minister of Health, said on Saturday, October 29.

“Liver and stomach are among the top five cancers in Rwanda. So, we need to provide adequate care to the patients coming with those two diseases. Together, we will invest resources to avail state of the art medical equipment and modern medical infrastructure,” Ngamije said.

He added that the development was in line with the country’s vision of becoming a regional hub in provision of medical services.

Speaking to the two hospitals management teams, Prof Dua Kulwinder, the chair of WEO’s Outreach Committee, said Kigali’s hosting two centres in one city was a ‘unique’ fact.

“All the people in Africa, who will come for training, will not only see what services you all can offer so that they can send patients from their countries over here, but they will be always connected with you,” said Kulwinder, who led a delegation from the global endoscopy body. “Therefore, I am very pleased that we have two centres.”

He added that they were planning to start working at the Rwanda Military Hospital, and that he would not be surprised if Kigali got the third WEO training centre.

Ati “Imwe muri gahunda zatangijwe uyu mwaka harimo ‘gynecology obstetrics’ yahise ijyamo inzobere nshya 48 twahuguye, mu gihe buri mwaka hasozaga amasomo abagera ku munani mu Rwanda. Twari turi kuganira n’abayobozi b’ibitaro byigisha ku buryo bagenda biyongera, ko ibyo kohereza abarwayi bava mu ntara bajya i Kigali byamaze kugabanyuka mu mezi atatu ya mbere kandi twizeye kuzagira izo serivisi mu ntara zitandukanye aho kugira ngo bajye baza i Kigali.”

Dr Nsanzimana yahamije ko Ibitaro Byitiriwe Umwami Faisal bifasha ibindi bitaro 10 by’Intara muri gahunda yo kwigisha abaganga bafite ubumenyi n’ubushobozi.

Yavuze ko ibi bitaro nibyuzura bizahagarika ingendo abarwayi bakoraga bajya kwivuriza mu bihugu by’amahanga.

Ati “Kwagura ibi bitaro ntibizahagarika ibyo kujya abantu bakora ingendo imbere mu gihugu gusa, ahuwo bizanahagarika abarwayi twoherezaga hanze y’igihugu. Hari ugusimbuza impyiko byatangiye hano, twabonye ko abo twoherezaga bose gusimburizwa impyiko byahagaze, hamwe n’abantu barenga 300 babazwe umutima kuva mu mwaka ushize muri ibi bitaro, twizeye ko tutazongera kubona umuntu woherezwa kubagwa umutima hanze y’u Rwanda.”

Biteganyijwe ko serivisi ibi bitaro bizajya bitanga serivisi zigezweho z’ubuvuzi ku Banyafurika n’abandi batuye Isi muri rusange. Source (Igihe).

The hospital, one of the largest in Rwanda, is set to undergo major expansion works aimed not only at increasing its bed capacity but also bringing on board new surgical and medical subspecialties.

Under the project, the hospital will upgrade its oncology department, introduce additional critical care and accident and emergency services, as well as bring on board expanded cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, and orthopaedic surgery services.

Speaking at the launch, Kagame talked about the importance of having facilities that will provide top quality healthcare to Rwandans so that people do not always have to travel to seek it from abroad.

“You send people to go and train outside, they come back, but you keep sending patients outside to be treated. It does not add up,” he said.

“It is in that context that we attach so much importance to these kinds of investments in us by friends, and by partners and we want to translate that to the level of that meaning I was talking about. That takes commitment as well as continued presence and practice of the things that are needed,” he added.

Amine Tannouri, the CEO of Shelter Group Africa, a company partnering with Rwanda in the expansion of the hospital, said the facility will offer luxurious architecture and ergonomic design reminiscent of a five-star hotel.

Health minister Dr Sabin Nsanzimana said the expansion will not only bring on board health services but also training for professionals, with the first cohort expected to start this year in specialties including anaesthesiology, intensive care, and radiology. (The New Times)

It’s a treatment that’s often started outside of countries like India, but it’s not popular with everyone. To date, KING Faisal Hospital has transplanted kidneys to 24 patients, and this week four more will be added, which will bring the number to 28.

This time in KFH, there was a gathering of kidney donors, volunteers and those who are assisted by machines in filtering blood, so that the donors can testify about their feelings and the donors show how it is possible to give a second life. These people were also united so that those who have not yet seen the donors of their kidneys feel that life does not end there and that hour by hour they can be changed into history and receive this gift.