The Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) is planning to make legal abortion services available at health centres across the country following a year-long pilot programme that enabled eligible women and girls to access the services closer to their communities.
The programme was conducted at 43 health centres in Musanze, Karongi, Rwamagana and Ruhango districts, where trained nurses and midwives worked with hospital doctors to provide the services.
Dr François-Régis Cyiza, Director of the Health Facilities Programmes Unit in RBC’s Maternal, Child and Community Health Division, said the findings from the pilot were being used to develop plans for expanding the programme nationwide.
According to Cyiza, approximately 3,200 women and girls sought legal abortion services across Rwanda during the 2025/2026 financial year.
Of these, between 900 and 1,000 received the services at health centres participating in the pilot programme between July 2025 and June 2026.
The initiative was designed to reduce the need for patients to travel directly to hospitals by allowing initial assessments and certain medical procedures to be carried out at participating health centres.
Under the arrangement, a trained nurse or midwife receives a patient seeking legal abortion services, assesses their condition and conducts the necessary medical tests.
The findings are then entered into an electronic system, where a doctor based at a hospital reviews the information and consults the healthcare worker attending to the patient before a decision is made.
This approach allows patients to receive care closer to home while ensuring that hospital doctors remain involved in clinical decisions.
RBC is now reviewing the experience gained from the pilot to determine how the programme can be introduced at additional health centres.
However, the nationwide expansion remains in the planning stage, and an implementation date has not yet been announced.
The initiative follows changes to Rwanda’s regulations governing healthcare facilities authorised to provide legal abortion services.
A ministerial order published in the Official Gazette on December 9, 2024, expanded the categories of facilities permitted to provide the services.
Under the amended regulations, authorised public and private hospitals, health centres and polyclinics may provide abortion services in accordance with the applicable legal and medical requirements.
The Ministry of Health may also authorise other clinics to offer the services after assessing whether they meet the required standards.
Previously, regulations introduced in 2019 had limited the facilities authorised to perform abortions to hospitals and polyclinics.
The changes created a legal framework for expanding access to the services beyond hospitals, particularly in communities where patients may face difficulties travelling to larger healthcare facilities.
The planned expansion also takes into account health facilities operated by religious organisations, some of which do not provide abortion services because of their beliefs.
Cyiza explained that RBC works with faith-based healthcare providers while recognising that certain medical procedures may conflict with their religious principles.
In such cases, patients seeking services that cannot be provided at those facilities are referred to other authorised healthcare centres where the required care is available.
As RBC prepares for the wider rollout, the experience from the four pilot districts will inform how health centres can provide the services while maintaining medical oversight and complying with Rwanda’s legal requirements.
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