Allied Health science students petition Minister to ease payment for professional license exams

By Elias Hakizimana

Vulnerable students and graduates from allied health sciences at University of Rwanda’s College of Medicine and Health Sciences (CMHS) have petitioned the Minister of Health to help them sit exams licensing them to practice medical profession, and pay later.

They are worried that they might miss the examinations because the Rwanda Allied Health Professional Council (RAHPC), which prepares such medical professional licensing examinations, has obliged them to pay Rwf50,000, each before September 10, 2017.

They petitioned the Minister of Health on September 4, 2017.

Explaining how difficult it is for them to get such exam fee, they argued that they were still fresh graduates with no employment, and most of them studied thanks to the government bursary as they are vulnerable from the first ‘Ubudehe’ category – the class composed of the neediest people.

Among the affected graduates from allied health sciences, there are those who did Biomedical Laboratory Sciences, Anesthesia, Physiotherapy, Clinical Psychology, Clinical Medicine, Human Nutrition, Orthopedics, Ophtamology, Dentotherapy, Environmentally Sciences, Occupational Therapy, Medical Imaging Sciences, and more.

Egide, whose second name has been withheld by The Inspirer for the sake of his security protection owing to the sensitiveness of this issue, is one of the students who shared difficulties to find such fee after few days out of school and yet to earn money.

“For myself, it is difficult to find such amount of money in few days after we left school, and most of us studied in poor conditions with the support of the government. Most of us are in the first category of ‘Ubudehe’ and it is hard to find that fee, and this can be a barrier for us to get jobs without being licensed,” he says.

Another female finalist from the college of medicine and health science, who did not want her names to go into the media for the sake that her security might be endangered, said she is ready for the exam and recognizes that paying the due fees is very important, but she expressed the issue of lack of financial capacity to afford it.

“The fee for the exam must be paid and we are not against it; the only problem we have is the time to pay it. We are still fresh graduates and we have not jobs, we do not even have licenses to look for jobs, so we can’t find such money,” she said.

According to Eustache Ndayisaba, the representative of Intagamburuzwa national coordination/Rwanda national student association, the issue is still complicating these graduates as the allied health professional exam is set from September 27, 2017 and they have not yet got feedback on their letter of appeal.

“They should give us early feedback to our appeal to know if they agreed to help the students or extend the deadline to pay the fee so that they start looking for other possible solutions,” Ndayisaba said.

“But I do not think they can afford to pay such money as fresh graduates,” he added.

They had exposed their issue to the President before

According to their petition letter to the Minister, they mentioned that such an issue was presented to His Excellency, President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame when the head of State was officially closing the third batch of ‘Intagamburuzwa’ national civic coordination bringing together representative of students from both higher learning institutions and universities.

During that function held on September 13, 2016, the President pledged to follow up on this matter to allow students to pay after they have got jobs.

Link of the video when H.E Paul Kagame responding to the issue on September 13, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1FtymNWAGQ

However, their appeal also mentions that their colleagues from nurses and midwifery department will not pay such fee as it was communicated by their council on August 22, 2017 whereas these allied health science students.

What the RAHPC says

According to Jean Baptiste Ndahiriwe, Registrar at RAHPC, it is compulsory that for any student to do such exam, they must pay for it before because the council has to pay for foreign consultants and hire other experts for the preparation of the exam, noting that they need to be paid.

He mentioned that the council has not any other budget for that purpose, aside from such fee from the students who sit the exam.

Ndahiriwe said however that the council has started raising advocacy for that issue by looking for sponsors together with the ministry of health.

“As the president of republic announced to find a solution for this [problem], different institutions are thinking on what to do.  [But], through our discussions, we have not yet found a solution,” he said.

“I can encourage those with financial capacity to start paying the money to do the exam. But, it is not totally possible to do it without paying as we do not have any other budget as the council,” he noted.

Over 1,000 students from both public and private universities countrywide are expected to do the exam this year.

As for last year, 1,200 students sat the exam and among them only 171 passed. In case a candidate fails the exam, they can sit it the next time, and still pay Rwf50,000.

The RAHPC license is renewed after two years of acquisition and the holder has to pay Rwf25,000 annual for the renewal of the license, according to Ndahiriwe.

We tried to get comments from the Minister of Health to know whether there is any advocacy ahead for for a solution to this issue but she did neither answer our phone calls, nor respond to our short phone-based messages.