Paper short abstract:

This paper reflects on the future of African hospitals from the perspective of a unique experiment in social medicine located in a rural and poor district of northern Rwanda, where the nexus between a new kind of medical university and its teaching hospital radically transforms healthcare.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I approach the question of the future of African hospitals from the perspective of a unique experiment in social medicine that is currently taking place in a rural and poor district of northern Rwanda. In 2011, the ONG Partners in Health (PIH), following the vision of the medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer, opened a hospital in this district – then a medical desert – to provide the best available healthcare to its underprivileged communities. Eight years later, in 2019, PIH opened in the same district the modern campus of a medical university, called the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE), with the ambition to train a new generation of health professionals – not only for Rwanda but for the entire continent. Both institutions have strong community engagement programmes and are “rooted in a place” (Farmer), as much as they have a global outlook and partnerships with prestigious institutions. UGHE and the Butaro district hospital (now UGHE’s teaching hospital), built on the top of two hills separated only by marshes and maize and potato fields, have attracted much attention. They are seen by many as a particularly striking “exemplar” in global health, and by others as a utopian project that cannot easily be replicated. Based on my experience as faculty at UGHE, I will offer some reflections on what makes the nexus between the hospital and the university so unique, on the challenges it faces, and on its potential to radically transform the hospital in rural Africa.