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Residents’ call heard…Kamarang hospital gets a doctor
After months of pleading with the Ministry of Health, residents of Kamarang, Region Seven are now to benefit from the services of a doctor.
This is according to Regional Chairman, Gordon Bradford, who said that Dr. Kerreidsh Persaud is now stationed at the village’s lone health facility.
Kamarang’s Medic, Brenda Hastings
Kamarang is a small Amerindian community, which is home to about 500 persons. Although the neighbourhood hospital is far from being full-fledged, Bradford insisted that a doctor being present in the area is, in itself, advancement.
Kamarang was previously served by one Medic who was assisted by two nurses. Medics are often like head nurses. They can provide emergency and basic care, but unlike doctors, medics cannot make diagnosis and issue advance treatments.
During a visit to Kamarang in December, residents complained that because of the absence of a doctor, the hospital has always been incapable of looking after anything beyond basic response.
Some of what used to be handled at the facility include the dressing of small cuts and bruises and the delivering of babies in cases where there aren’t any complications.
Brenda Hastings, the community medic, told Kaieteur News, then, that countless requests were made to the regional health office, as the need for a qualified doctor had been rising daily.
Hastings explained that while there are a few beds at the health centre for persons to be admitted, most cases are transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for proper treatment to be administered there.
The medic noted that while there are certain amenities available, there wasn’t a doctor who could have utilized them.
She said that when this happens, it becomes very expensive for the majority of the villagers to fly to the city, adding that the regional office would usually fund the transportation cost for ill persons, while their relatives would have to pay their own.
Meanwhile, 39-year-old Carl Williams, who has been living in Kamarang all of his life, said that the cost of living in the region has skyrocketed, making it hard for persons to travel out of the village.
This was one factor that has been of worry to Williams, who stressed that it is necessary that a well-qualified doctor be present in the community at all times. He added that usually, the people of Kamarang have been feeling neglected.
Region Seven’s Chairman, Gordon Bradford
“Because is like nobody ain’t care about we till up here. What can be worst than living in a place like this without a doctor; we can’t even treat malaria and dem things, and we is the ones living where malaria deh nuff,” Williams had said.
Apart from the cases of malaria, the father of one said that even pregnant women were not spared.
“Imagine pregnant women and all who does have to be going on them planes with dem big, big belly to land at Ogle and then have to go to Georgetown Hospital, and that, I sure can’t be easy.” But that was then.
Regional Chairman Bradford is confident that the doctor’s presence in Kamarang will alleviate some of the health constraints.
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