President Kagame yesterday inaugurated an Auditorium bearing his name in IRCAD (Research Institute against Digestive Cancer) Strasbourg and confirmed to establish IRCAD in Rwanda. Read his remarks below:
Good afternoon. I am very pleased to be here in Strasbourg. I have been looking forward to this visit for a long time. Let me tell you why. To begin with, when I first met Professor Marescaux, he told me what he does and that he would wish to do this in Rwanda, in our country.
I could not believe it immediately, so I at first thought I had not heard properly, and I asked him if that is what he was saying and he confirmed. I was very pleased and said we would do anything on our side to meet him halfway so that he does the most important thing for us, which is to establish IRCAD in Rwanda.
Other reasons are that medical technology and innovation are the most powerful ways of bringing high-quality health care to our people. Quality and access: These are the pillars of our vision for health care in Rwanda. We have to give our people the best care, and it has to be affordable and widely available.
We are very pleased to be collaborating with IRCAD, one of France’s leading medical institutions, in pursuit of these goals. For three decades, IRCAD has been a pioneer in the use of information technology to improve surgical techniques and outcomes.
I want to thank Professor Marescaux, along with his staff and IRCAD’s generous benefactors, for hosting me and my delegation here today.
The naming of this auditorium is a special distinction. I am humbled by this honour and wish to thank you, Professor Marescaux, and your team, and all those who work with you and support this project. Thank you very much. Jacques and I have spoken about IRCAD’s capabilities many times, but it is another thing entirely to see what happens here.
I feel therefore I have connected directly with what, going forward, we will be even more deeply associated with. But what really makes technology deliver results is the people behind the machines. This is no less true with many other things involved with these technologies, even when we are talking about artificial intelligence and robotics.
IRCAD Africa is going to have a very significant focus on training surgeons and engineers in the latest minimally invasive surgery techniques. African specialists are already receiving online training and soon expert professors will come to Kigali – and I am very happy to host you in our country – to teach in person.
I am also pleased to note that IRCAD has already established solid partnerships with higher education institutions in Rwanda, including Carnegie Mellon University Africa. This is another institution that has established itself in our country that we are honoured also to be associated with.
Construction of IRCAD Africa is well underway, and we expect to inaugurate it next year. We should really have been done much earlier than we are talking about, however we are going to see what we can do to speed it up even more.
I look forward to welcoming many of you to Rwanda at that time, and we can be together in celebrating this big milestone, not only of just collaboration, but also what is going to happen through this collaboration which makes a big difference in the lives of many in Africa and particularly in Rwanda.
So I am just happy to be here. I thought when Professor Marescaux calls, as somebody said earlier, you say yes. I put aside some of the things I was doing in Paris and said, before I go back home, this is one of the programs I cannot fail to be part of, this dedication; I cannot fail to be here. So thank you so much, every one of you here, and I really appreciate you all. Thank you for your kind attention. (End)