RW’s first health center construction project was in the Gashora sector of Bugesera district. In 2007, all that existed on the Gashora Health Center site was an under-staffed, under-funded facility with scarce resources. Infrastructure was essentially non-existent: electricity was limited, water was laboriously hauled in jerry cans from a nearby spring, and the dark rooms were unsanitary. In collaboration with the Rwandan Ministry of Health, the Bugesera District Government, and the Access Project, the Rwanda Works team oversaw the design and construction of a state-of-the-art 1,000-square-meter, 33-room facility. This partnership was made possible by critical funding from Harold Simmons and the Schmidt Family Foundation.
The new Gashora Health Center opened in May 2010 and sees an estimated 80 patients per day. The health center officially serves a catchment population of more than 22,000 people, though thousands of others travel by foot, bike, and bus from other districts to seek out the top-quality primary health care offered there. Gashora’s open-air hallways are designed to reduce disease transmission, and waiting areas are clean and bright. The health center features a well-equipped laboratory, external latrines, internal running water, and electricity from the power grid. A fruit tree orchard grows on the premises, providing food for patients and for nutrition programming, while community health workers use the fuel-efficient cookstoves in the industrial kitchen to lead nutrition demonstrations in an effort to teach the local community about healthy eating.
The center hosts voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) for HIV and antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV patients. The maternity wing includes a prenatal consultation room and two delivery rooms—essential in a country where the maternal mortality ratio, as high as 750 per 100,000 live births, can devastate families and impede progress towards prosperity.