A Poor Nation, With a Health Plan

COVERAGE A 68-year-old who gave her name as Clementine got treatment and medicine at a Mayange clinic under Rwanda’s national health plan.

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
NYT

MAYANGE, Rwanda — The maternity ward in the Mayange district health center is nothing fancy.

It has no running water, and the delivery room is little more than a pair of padded benches with stirrups. But the blue paint on the walls is fairly fresh, and the labor room beds have mosquito nets.

Inside, three generations of the Yankulije family are relaxing on one bed: Rachel, 53, her daughter Chantal Mujawimana, 22, and Chantal’s baby boy, too recently arrived in this world to have a name yet.

The little prince is the first in his line to be delivered in a clinic rather than on the floor of a mud hut. But he is not the first with health insurance. Both his mother and grandmother have it, which is why he was born here.

(More here.)