THE SPECIALITY HOSPITAL

Aug 25, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

The middle class in Guyana is growing, and growing fast. This class is doing well because of the sustained and impressive growth in the economy. Many Guyanese are now in a stronger financial position and the higher disposable incomes that are now available are creating new demands for better health and education services.
This is why there has been an appreciable increase in private education through the establishment of a number of private schools.
The middle class and the upper lower classes can now afford to send their children to private schools. Some of them are already paying for their education in the public system, because when you total up the amount of money that is spent on extra lessons each month, it makes practical sense to simply send your child to a good private school where no extra lessons are required.
The other big area of improvement is in health care. We have seen the establishment of new hospitals which provide a range of medical services both in the city and in the countryside.
The public is flocking to the private hospitals and is willing to pay handsomely for the services provided despite the fact that the same services are available in the public health system.
There are some people who, for reasons of class, would never be seen at a public hospital. They consider themselves above that, and they are prepared to spend two thousand dollars on consultation fees to see a doctor and if needs be, a couple more hundred thousand dollars for a short hospitalization. They are ashamed to say that they cannot afford this.
This sort of class behaviour is what will keep private health care going, no matter how good the public health system becomes. And people will tell you that the health services provided at public hospitals are now at their best ever.
But some people are embarrassed by the mere thought of being seen to have to seek free medical attention. They are afraid of what their rich friends and what their neighbours would say. They are afraid of comments like, “Look at she! She has all that money and she going to the public hospital. You mean she hand so mean that she can’t pay and go and see a private doctor?”
Once there are sufficient people who would rather pay for private health care rather than be seen at a free public health facility, private hospitals are going to do well. They are going to do even better because of the growth of the middle class. They are going to do better because some services which formerly usually required persons to fly to Trinidad for treatment are now being done in Guyana.
We now have a private heart institute providing cardiac treatment to patients. We now have specialist doctors doing surgeries that before could not have been done here. We now have situations where persons from overseas are now coming to Guyana to fix their eyes and have kidney transplants.
In this sort of environment, private health care is a big market, and the oligarchy which is attempting to corner the major segments of Guyana’s economy is eyeing the health care system.
They already have their tentacles tightly around a large share of Guyana’s pharmaceutical industry which is a multi-billion-dollar market. And now it seems as if they are about to make their move into the big league in Guyana, the provision of specialist health care. This is where bigger profits are available.
The government has to be very circumspect when it comes to entering into any partnership with the private sector as it relates to the provision of health care. For decades when Guyana’s health care was in the doldrums, when surgeries used to have to be cancelled at the public hospital because of the poor state of the operating rooms, the private sector was not very interested in partnering with the government.
The rich folks could afford to fly out to hospitals in North America to have their regular check-ups, since many of them had dual citizenship or landed immigrant status. Now that there is money, big money to be made from private health services, the oligarchy is trying to rope the government in by partnering with them to establish a specialty hospital.
This is unacceptable. This proposed specialty hospital that the government is proposing to build is not going to provide free specialist services. It is going to provide a market for private health-care providers, with a heavy subsidy from the government. The cost has to be shared between the patient and the government, and the government will also have to build the hospital. In short, the government is spending money so that the private specialists can make money by providing specialist services. This is what the proposed specialty hospital is about.
Unfortunately, it seems as if the opposition has voted to support the preparations for such a hospital. There is no need for any public-private partnership when it comes to the specialty hospital. There is in fact no need for any specialty hospital. Just upgrade the existing public hospitals to provide the specialty services and things will be okay. This can be done cheaper than through establishing a new institution, since the infrastructure is already there, and the specialists can now be flown in to do the operations and flown out back afterwards.
The government cannot allow the oligarchy to continue to milk this economy. They should be on their guard to ensure that the oligarchy has no stake in the provision of health care by the State.

---

---