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We will do nothing to diminish sugar workers’ interest
– Minister Ramsaran
“We love sugar workers and will do nothing to diminish their interest,” said Minister within the Health Ministry, Dr Bheri Ramsaran. The Minister was at the time seeking to clarify some remarks attributed to him about the health sector assuming responsibility for health services provided by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
According to the Minister, he had sought to explain to some media operatives at a recent media briefing that since the government has a strong inter-agency setup, it is seeking to garner relevant information from various sister agencies in the quest to improve the delivery of health care countrywide.
In doing so, the Minister said that the Ministry of Health has been working on absorbing the health delivery service offered by the Sugar Company, a move which could help the entity to direct more attention to the production of sugar.
Minister within the Health Ministry, Dr Bheri Ramsaran
And according to him, efforts have already been engaged in this regard at the De Kinderen Health Centre which was previously manned by GuySuCo. The Minister said that rehabilitation works have been undertaken on the facility and measures have been put in place to increase the medical staff capacity there.
He speculated that the move was essential as GuySuCo might have been giving limited service as its medical workforce would have been notably small. “They may have had a Medex or only a nurse. But we have situated that facility in such a way now that you can have several doctors living upstairs, who besides working at the cottage hospital at Leonora could also be rotated at the De Kinderen facility.”
Ruling out speculations that the Ministry has not been working in collaboration with GuySuCo, the Minister noted that “we did not break and enter the De Kinderen facility.” The Minister said that the process has been one where the Ministry has been working quietly over the past several months and is in no way geared at scaling down the operation neither will it be a fly-by-night approach.
The Minister added that to some extent his utterances were misrepresented by some sections of the media. “I mentioned nothing about communicating with any external agency. I haven’t got that authority…” The Minister was at the time referring to reports that the unions that represent the sugar workers are not in favour of the move proposed by the Minister.
“We love sugar workers…Every year I march with Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU). I have been locked up with sugar workers way back in the 80s when they had all those protest marches. Thirty-five workers were locked up – 28 were sugar workers, seven were bauxite workers and I was the only public servant.
“Every year I am one of the few Ministers if not the only one that marches with GAWU and rub shoulders with the sugar workers…” And as a matter of course the Minister said that the Ministry will be working to have more doctors tend to the wellbeing of sugar workers.
On Thursday, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) said that its position on the transfer of GuySuCo’s traditional health service is unchanged – “GAWU is still strenuously and vigorously opposed to the government plans.”
“GuySuCo for decades has been providing the sugar industry with primary health care services for thousands of employees and their families,” GAWU said.
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