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Amended legislation needful to improve public health services – CMO

Jan 04, 2013 News

The Ministry of Health will this year be seeking to have outdated legislation amended in Parliament with a view of better dealing with matters of a public health nature.
At least this is according to Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, who revealed during a recent press briefing that among the legislation expected to attract the attention of the National Assembly is that of a Public Health Act which was passed in 1934.
According to the CMO, the Health Ministry currently has a proposal for a new Public Health Bill which will seek to address all of the shortcomings evident in the old legislation.
“As you know, the Public Health Ordinance is very outdated…and since then only a few regulations were made.”
Dr. Persaud also observed that there have been numerous complaints about nuisances; non-compliance with public health requirements in building codes, the operation of businesses and reports of offensive trade have mounted, among other issues. However, he noted that although the existing legislation has provisions to address these issues “the penalties are so miniscule that they are almost laughable. So we hope to bring this new Act to the parliament very soon and to have a few new laws in place that deal with public health”.
Added to public health challenges, the CMO revealed that the Health Ministry has been faced with a great deal of difficulties as it relates to Environmental Health.  He attributed this to the fact that the Department currently has a reduced capacity, having lost the services of the Director and one of the Senior Principal Environmental Health Officers – one to retirement and the other resigning. However, moves have since been engaged to fill those vacancies, even as efforts are made to work in collaboration with other agencies to ensure that Environmental Health is given much needed attention.
Dr. Persaud revealed that intensified efforts are also being directed to the need to reduce morbidity and mortality due to Communicable diseases. However, he pointed to the fact that while such achievements are being made, the effects of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) are now becoming one of the major reasons for death among the population.
“What we know happens is that a lot of untimely deaths do occur from NCDs, especially heart diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes.”
With this in mind, Dr. Persaud said that as part of the Ministry’s effort to address this, is the need to look more closely at the causes of untimely deaths, to ensure that people are able to access the right kinds of health services.
Moreover, the Health Ministry has been working closely with the Cancer Institute and the Caribbean Heart Institute as well as other foundations that offer renal services in Guyana, he disclosed.  The aim is to have the Ministry formalise arrangements with all of these agencies so as to reduce some of its expenditure.
“Just as we do a lot of evacuations from the interior, we expend an enormous amount of resources in providing treatment overseas for patients who need such services. There are not many, but they are very costly, and if you add them up, a significant amount of the available resources is expended this way,” Dr. Persaud noted.
The Health Ministry spent more than $ 19 million to facilitate evacuations of patients from interior locations to the Georgetown Public Hospital in 2012.

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