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Health Ministry poised to improve DOTS programme

Mar 28, 2009 News

With the main intent being to provide a set of directions to strengthen the health system and decrease mortality and morbidity due to Tuberculosis (TB), the local Health Ministry is working towards ensuring that its Direct Observation Therapy Strategy (DOTS) services are sustained and improved.
In 1994, Guyana established DOTS, a programme that sees health workers visit all registered TB patients and ensure that they take their treatment as recommended.
The improvement of the DOTS programme is detailed in the Ministry’s 2008-2012 Strategic Plan, which has as its ultimate goal to decrease the incidence of TB in Guyana.
According to Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud, the Strategic Plan serves to outline policies, principals, strategies and programmes of the national response to tuberculosis control in Guyana for the stipulated period.
He noted that the plan links the objective of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations, the National Development Strategy (NDS) of Guyana and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper with the National Health Sector Strategy of Guyana.
The 2008-2012 Strategic Plan represents the second of its kind, which evolved out of a previous plan, which was developed in 2001 and implemented during the period 2002 through 2006 with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Dr. Persaud has noted that that plan had further benefited from the main goals and objectives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘Stop TB’ partnership and the Pan American Health Organisation Regional Plan for TB control in the Americas.
The current Strategic Plan, according to the doctor covers the critical strategic issues relevant to organisation and decentralisation of the services for early detection, adequate treatment, supervision, monitoring and evaluation of TB.
“It is built on the principals of quality of health care, equity in the delivery of all services, accountability of all recourses (human, financial and material) and with a distinctive focus that is people centred.”
It is also intended to ensure that the publicly guaranteed package of health services relating to TB are delivered in an appropriate and timely manner at all levels of the health system including the private sector.
According to Dr. Persaud, the local Health Ministry recognises the input of the Canadian Society for International Health Epidemiologist Centre (CAREC), Stop TB Partnership, of the Americas, Guyana Chest Society/International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (IUATLD), the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), the World Bank and PAHO/WHO for their contribution to the development of the current plan.
And according to the Chief Medical Officer, the Ministry is confident that the support for the implantation of the multi-year strategic plan will enable the achievement of the overarching goal reducing the impact of TB on the health and well being of all Guyanese.
Principal to this move is the implementation of a programme to expand and improve all components of the DOTS strategy in all levels of service delivery within the health system even as efforts are made to manage the National TB Programme effectively by means of advocacy, policy, capacity building and finance, the strategic plan details.
Moreover it was outlined that there would be the need to properly manage Multi-Drug Resistant TB and strengthen the collaboration between TB and HIV programmes; establish a functional laboratory network involving the Primary Health Care Services; improve TB management with high-risk groups of the population and decrease discrimination and stigma within the health personnel and the population in general.
Aided by its strategic plan it is anticipated that the public health sector would be able to improve its DOTS service and have total coverage by 2015.

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