Allied Health Professionals Bill crucial to health sector

May 11, 2009 News

– Minister Ramsammy

– Will determine who can be a health professional

With the expected passage of the Allied Health Professional Bill, Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy will be bestowed with the power to determine who is allowed to practice in the medical field and in what capacity.
The first reading of the Bill occurred in Parliament two Thursdays ago but has been referred to a Special Select Committee, which will be tasked with discussing its content before a debate is mounted in this regard.
The intent of the Bill is to bring greater legal and regulatory framework to guide the practice of a number of health professionals.
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy disclosed recently that he intends to suggest that the Committee invites stakeholders to make presentations about the Bill, as it is a very important legislation, which would impact many persons in the society.
According to the Minister he was forced to bring up the Bill at this point because of the fact that there are persons, including some that identify themselves as religious pontiffs and as herbalists, who claim they can cure diseases.
“They think that they are health professionals but you have to be licensed to be a health care professional…praying is not the same as being a health professional. There are certain traditional things that we want to continue with but we have to ensure that people are not being exploited,” the Minister noted.
For this reason, he said that the Bill will create the parameters for who can provide health care adding that as a legislation it will also determine who is allowed to be labelled with certain professional titles.
The Minister stressed the point that, “If you call yourself a medical doctor you must know you have to register with the medical council.”
Among the category of persons that will be affected with the passage of the law are herbalists, evangelists who claim they can heal diseases for which there is no cure, chiropractors, medical technologists as well as optometrists and opticians.
And according to the Minister, for some time now there has been confusion as to how optometrists and opticians are regulated.
He explained that the optometrists are doctors who are trained to deal with the eye while opticians are technologists and not doctors. Opticians he said are able to do certain measurements in the eye to determine an individual’s vision level and are able to make lens in this regard. However they are not permitted to write prescriptions, as this is the duty of the optometrist who is also trained to carry out eye tests.
“The public does not understand this and many of the opticians have been misrepresenting themselves as doctors and that will change with this law.”
According to the Minister optometrists have a 1956 ordinance that controls their practice. And since there are only about five of them in Guyana he disclosed that the Medical Council is tasked with implementing laws and regulations that govern their operation thus they are required to register with the Council.
The opticians, on the other hand, the Minister said would be mandated to register under the Allied Health Professionals Act when it becomes law as will several other operators who are currently allowed to provide related health care.