A life in Guyana in 2015

May 13, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The election is over and as the nation awaits the polls, the political life of Guyana has to be seen as a little more than a mere struggle for power. There has to be a higher good and a higher calling for our politicians, but that depends on the people whom they are elected to serve.
Hopefully, the issues raised and the problems exposed during the campaign by the two major political parties will usher in a turning point for a better decorum, as the leaders focused on those issues rather than personalities and self-interest. And there are many burning issues throughout the country, so it is up to the new government to carefully examine them and try to find solutions. The nation has suffered far too long and when a nation suffers, its citizens suffer too.
The moral fabric of our society has over the years been severely ruptured, resulting in a breakdown of law and order, greater corruption, higher crime rate and a culture associated with greed, selfishness and vindictiveness. This seems to engulf us all, including the professionals, but is far more common among the politicians.
The noble are not so noble anymore, honesty has turned into dishonesty, love into hate, courtesy into rudeness, friends into foes and laughter into tears. We cannot build a solid, moral and progressive society without law, order, discipline and good governance that is transparent and accountable—a government of the people, for the people and by the people. That much our forefathers have taught us, but did we listen?
Crime, especially armed robberies and murders which have been on the rise, has become one of the major problems affecting the citizens over the last decade or so and the fear of being a victim pervades our society. Murders are committed sometimes in broad daylight and in the busiest of areas in the country and most, including the murder of Courtney Crum-Ewing, remain unsolved. The people have always believed that Government has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and the hope is that a new government will.
While the taxpayers’ money has been used to construct the Marriott Hotel, the poor continue to live in shacks and cannot make ends meet. The nation’s one and only University is in rapid decay, the public schools have deteriorated to the point of being unmanageable, and the government has failed to deal with this untenable situation. Simply put, the country education system has failed our children.
The health care system has been ailing for decades, with superficial attempts at applying a plaster here and a plaster there. Guyana’s two-tiered health care system – one for the privileged and well-off and the other, a less dignified, for the poor who complained about the long wait at the public hospitals and the lack of staff and drugs.
Even the middle class is now complaining about similar problems as well as the high cost of health care. And there has been little effort to nurse the system back to health and provide quality care for all.
It is undeniable that the state of health in Guyana leaves much to be desired. Guyana’s infant mortality rate is five times higher than the rate in most developed nations, and the maternal mortality rate is even greater. These particular indicators do not only reflect a lack of resources, but also point to systemic issues in the public health care sector, which includes the lack of due diligence on the part of the health care workers in the system, particularly the doctors and nurses.
Where is the human development? In a country with a population of about 748,000, one in every two persons is struggling to feed their children. This proportion of the population is affected by the reckless waste and theft of the nation’s resources by those in authority. But beyond these issues there is a greater problem, a near crisis if you may, of leadership at almost every level of the government. Ministries are poorly managed and so is the Office of the President, and there is hardly any control over the state agencies.
These are some of the major concerns of many of our citizens who simply want a better country for their children and future generations, but this can only be realized by a new government. Let’s wait and see! This is life in Guyana.
Dr. Asquith Rose

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