Dr Yvonne Kayiteshonga

Currently employed as the Mental Health Division Manager, at the Rwanda Biomedical Centre/Ministry of Health (MoH) in Rwanda. I have extensive experience in health care management, as well as working as a care provider in mental health for over 31 years. I am privileged to have shaped the improvements seen in mental healthcare in Rwanda using evidence-based and context-tailored approaches Following the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, I was employed as a therapist and logistics officer at the National Trauma Centre in Kigali, the only mental health institution in the country at the time that was created to respond to the enormous trauma left by the genocide. At the time, our team was only composed of around 20 people. Today, the national mental health division I oversee is comprised of over 3000 actors in the mental health sector. Under my leadership, our workforce includes physicians, nurses, psychologists, counsellors, community health care workers and other workers who impact the mental health care of the people of Rwanda. We have heavily invested in community-based mental health to increase access to mental health services by decentralizing mental healthcare at the primary healthcare level. One of the mechanisms used is a homegrown solution: an army of Community Health Workers trained to provide a comprehensive package of community health services, including sensitizing the community in the fight against stigma related to mental disorders and supporting families to detect and orient patients to the health care system for seeking mental healthcare. We have seen that a multidisciplinary approach to mental health involving important unconventional actors such as CHWs often yields greater results.