Stepping in to save even more lives

Sep 15, 2011 Editorial

Dialysis, the difference between life and death in many cases, is being offered at yet another facility in Guyana. Starting yesterday the country’s newest hemodialysis facility went into operation. It can offer treatment to a dozen people at the same time, the largest in the country.
This is a far cry from the days when people with renal failure died because there was no hope for them. And it would be interesting to know just how many people went to the Great Beyond because there was simply no facility to offer help to those whose very system was being poisoned by the waste that their bodies generated.
Not so long ago when renal failure cases began to appear, an approach was made to Health Minister Gail Teixeira about setting up a facility. She contended that there were not enough cases in Guyana, a comment that one would find strange today.
Further, she declared that the reagents had a limited shelf life and were too expensive to store and watch them go to waste.
Because this facility as absent from the services offered by the local health services many people who had moved overseas but who wanted to come home for a vacation, recognized that to travel to Guyana was to court death.
A private individual opened the first hemodialysis facility in Guyana and offered a new lease on life to many. It was a small facility but then again there was a service. Guyana hosted the World Cup Cricket in 2007 and people who wanted to see the games but did not dare come to Guyana boarded the aircraft and came.
But there were those who said that they simply could not afford. In one case doctors advised a family to let the man die because he was making them bankrupt. In another case, a man who needed dialysis opted to die because he could not afford to stay alive at the rates charged.
The National Insurance Scheme contributed significantly to the upkeep of many people who had given their best years to the country and who now needed the blood purifying treatment. But there were those who never saw the need for the Scheme and who therefore could not reach out for the needed help.
In a few short years this situation has changed. Guyana’s largest dialysis centre is offering a service that is the cheapest yet. And this is because there is a partnership with the Guyana Government.
We do not know the extent of the government contribution but we do know that overseas-based Guyanese have stepped up to the plate to make cheap dialysis a reality. They have donated the machines in such numbers that this newest facility, the Doobay Renal Centre, has been able to give three machines to the Ministry of Health for installation at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The most revealing fact is that even if someone cannot afford the charges such a person would not be turned away. Someone has placed life over money.
The developments in the field of health over the past few years are astonishing. This country is offering heart surgery; it has done kidney transplants and it is now offering eye surgery. These were things that Guyanese had to access overseas. To add to these services, the Georgetown Public Hospital is offering hip and joint replacements. These emerged in the system rather quietly.
In the coming years the government would be establishing a state of the art hospital on the outskirts of Georgetown to cater for high end medical services. The plan is to have this facility staffed by Indian professionals. And the world knows that India has a surfeit of doctors.
What do these services mean for Guyana? They could make Guyana the home of medical services in the region. In the not too distant past we had to access the services in other countries at great cost. We expect to see the reverse—people coming from overseas to access our health facilities.
This expanded dialysis service seems to herald other developments. For one it highlights the fact that Guyanese always look to give back to their Mother Country.

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Stepping in to save even more lives

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