Latest update December 4th, 2024 2:40 AM
Plans in the making to extend subsidised countrywide renal service
In light of the fact that Guyana has a high kidney failure rate, strategic moves are being made by a privately-operated medical facility to take dialysis services to sections of the country where it is not readily available.
This ambitious development was intimated to this publication by senior officials of the Annandale, East Coast Demerara, Doobay Medical Centre, which currently caters to the dialysis needs of just over 40 patients.
The East Coast Demerara dialysis centre in operation.
According to President of the facility, Dr. Budhendra Doobay, already “we are in the process of setting up another centre in Berbice and another on the West Coast of Demerara…and we have plans to reach out to patients even further.”
Currently the Dialysis Centre has been seeing an increasing number of patients from the Essequibo Coast but “we recognise that this (East Coast Demerara) is a far way for them to come; so we will try to set-up a place either between Cornelia Ida and Parika.”
The Berbice Centre, he noted, will likely be set up strategically somewhere between New Amsterdam and Port Mourant to facilitate the needs of patients in that section of the country.
There are also plans, Dr. Doobay said, for yet another facility at Linden.
Local Investigations, he said, have confirmed that there is a particularly high incidence of renal disease in the Region 10 area hence the need for plans to expand the service there.
While realising the extended developments would require immense fundraising, Dr. Doobay said that the not-for-profit facility is hoping to get support from Government as well. “We are hoping for some kind of help from them (Government) to do this, maybe to even give us a facility perhaps even in a Health Centre…just give us an adequate size room so that we don’t have to go and beg somebody or go and buy a place,” considered Dr. Doobay.
“Give us a place in your facility so that we can help Guyanese and I want the people to know that this is only to help Guyanese and not to help ourselves but sometimes this message is difficult to get across,” he intimated.
Dr. Doobay, who practices as a Cardiovascular Surgeon in Canada is the founder of the East Coast Dialysis Centre which offers its service at a subsided rate.
He, during a recent visit here was on a mission to solicit support to find suitable locations to kick-off the extended plans. “At the moment I am reading Yagna (Hindu ritual) in Berbice and one of my reasons for going there, is to meet people and more than anything else get a facility,” Dr. Doobay told this publication.
While a location is yet to be identified in Berbice a commitment has been made by Swami Aksharananda Ji of the Saraswati Vidya Niketan at Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara, to provide a possible location to facilitate the dialysis service when the need arises. “He is a very strict man so if he says he is going to do it he will do it,” asserted Dr. Doobay; who noted that “this would be a big help for us. He wants to be part of it and if he is to be part of it you can rest assure that we will be well looked after.”
Although the extended service is seen as an imperative move, Dr. Doobay acknowledged that “it would mean a lot more work for us but we are prepared.”
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