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Health Minister unveils flood preparedness plan

Mar 22, 2011 News

As part of its flood preparedness plan, the Ministry of Health has put in place a permanent arrangement with its Supply Chain Management Unit which sees a minimum of 10 flood kits being available at all times.
According to Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, the Ministry has a permanent structure and response to any potential disaster, with particular focus on floods. And according to the Minister, any time there is a disaster the response is always automatic.
He explained that the first component of the response is to ensure that teams, aside from the regular health care providers, are on standby. “For example if there is a flood in Mahaica we know there is a hospital and that there are health centres along the way that must continue their normal work but we complement the existing health care providers in the areas with floods with special teams.”
Over the last several weeks the main areas that have benefited from complemented response were areas on West Coast Demerara and Region Six.
“We have been monitoring the situation and we are delighted that at the moment we do not have any major areas to respond to but the teams have been monitoring wherever extra assistance is required.”
Complementing the existing operation is very important, the Minister noted, since it is expected that health centres, hospitals and other health facilities would see an increased number of people who seek medical attention during a disaster.
This, as a result, would see a burden being placed on supply sites. These sites, the Minister said, would understandably be in need of more medicines and commodities to sustain their operations.
He said that a minimum of 10 kits are always “sitting in our supply chain system at any one time. That doesn’t mean that that is the number of people that will be in need but they are there whether there is a flood or not.”
Medicines, he said, are replaced regularly so as to ensure that they do not expire thus they are removed for general circulation and are replaced by medicines with longer shelf life.
However, at present, the Minister said that efforts are being made to ensure that there are more kits available to distribute to affected areas as well. In addition, he noted that the Ministry is collaborating with local communities, churches and other Non-Governmental Organisations and has been issuing regular advisories to ensure that people ensure that they are protected from the effects of flood conditions.

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