MASS

MASS works in Rwanda on two major projects in collaboration with Partners In Health and the Rwandan Ministry of Health. The Butaro Hospital, currently under construction, will be the first hospital in the 400,000 person Burera district in northern Rwanda. The first phase of this project will be completed this spring. In late 2010 and 2011, MASS will design and oversee construction for a Tuberculosis ward and testing area, as well as conceptualize an expansion plan for the campus to anticipate growth. This project uses innovative patient flow and passive ventilation systems to reduce the nosocomial spread of TB.

The Kirehe district hospital in southern Rwanda recently completed construction on its first building, but is currently lacking both a lab and a pharmacy, as well as other programs. MASS will design and oversee construction of a second round of buildings for this site, as well as develop strategies for future expansion and the growth of informal communities
around the hospital campus.

MASS sees both of these projects not simply as medical infrastructure, but also as civic infrastructure, as hospitals in these areas become anchors for new communities. Central to the work of the GHC fellows will be the creation of long-term strategies to accommodate and guide this civic development, considering the ramifications of different patterns of development on broader issues of global health.