Role of Maternal and Child Health Unit to be expanded

Jul 29, 2015 News

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..As Ministry announces attainment of MDGs Four and Five

Rebranding of the Ministry of Public Health’s Maternal and Child Health Unit (MCH) to the Family and Health Unit is being mulled by head of the Ministry, Dr. George Norton.
Dr. Norton, who holds the portfolio of Senior Minister of Public Health, made this disclosure yesterday as he delivered remarks at the opening of a three-day Maternal and Child Health/Expanded Programme on Immunization (MCH/EPI) half-year review meeting at Grand Coastal Inn, Le Ressouvenir, East Coast Demerara.
While the focus of the MCH Unit has always been on the health of women and children, Minister Norton shared his hope that the Unit with its new mandate will incorporate efforts geared towards improving the health and wellbeing of adolescents and males.
This decision, according to the Minister, comes on the heels of the unveiling of data highlighting worrying trends of prostate cancer in the local society. With 865 cases reported over the period of 2003-2012, prostate cancer has been identified as the third leading cause of cancer death in Guyana – breast cancer being the lead followed by cervical cancer.
Prostate cancer is the leading cancer in men with a Cumulative Incidence Rate of 230 per 100,000 population.
The Ministry, based on data obtained by the Guyana Cancer Registry and analysed by Chronic Diseases Director, Dr. Morris Edwards, has been able to deduce that prostate cancer has been found to be a disease that affects mostly aged men, as only four per cent of cases were in men below the ages of 55.
It is the hope that with its expanded mandate the Unit will continue to yield laudable results, which were applauded by the Minister at yesterday’s forum.

It was reported that through the MCH Unit, the Ministry of Public Health is currently able to offer the nation 16 antigens, that is, the types of available vaccines. And according to Minister Norton, “for the past number of years Guyana has not reported any vaccine-preventable disease, except for a few cases of tetanus in adults, and even so, it was more than five years ago that happened.”
According to him, in the expanded programme on immunization, the Ministry has been able to record high vaccination rates which translate to over 90 per cent national coverage.
“We certainly have so much to be proud of,” said the Minister as he boasted of Guyana’s immunisation status that saw it being tagged number three among 75 countries in the evaluation of effective vaccine management.
And credit was also given to the MCH Unit, which was formerly headed by Dr. Janice Woolford, for the implementation of the Safe Motherhood initiative, which according to the Minister, “is one of our cornerstone programmes to ensure the best standard of health care for both mothers and babies”.
In fact, the programme helped to cater to Guyana’s realisation of Numbers Four and Five of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which speak to the reduction of under-five and maternal mortalities. While there has been a notable reduction in such cases, the Minister added that “the fact remains that no woman should die during pregnancy and every pregnancy should result in a live baby…that should never be out of our sights.”
At the time of his address, the Minister said that there were only three reported cases of maternal deaths for this year.
But this achievement, he underscored, was not made possible with the efforts of senior health officials alone, but the contributions of lower level health workers were also instrumental.
“I would imagine that amongst you, apart from the physicians, the medexes and nurses, that there would be some Community Health Workers (CHWs)…I say this because without our Community Health Workers we could not have achieved that rate of vaccination,” said the Minister as he spoke of the treacherous journeying of some of these workers in order to get the Ministry’s immunisation work done.
Some, he disclosed, such as the CHW in a small hinterland village called Kamana, are tasked with trekking across mountainous terrain for days in order to collect much needed vaccines. “This meant a lot to me; it meant a lot to the children in that village, and I cannot for one moment forget about those efforts…in order for us to achieve that level of vaccination that we have,” the Public Health Minister stressed.
He however admitted that “it grieves me when I go into other health centres and I see for the lack of maintenance or probably repair of a minor nature, or refrigeration processes were not functioning…”  This latter state of affairs, the Minister lamented, is one that essentially deprives babies of needful vaccinations.
In ensuring that no one is deprived, Dr. Norton yesterday spoke of plans to ensure that remedial measures are put in place. “That is one of the areas that we will certainly work towards – making sure that the equipment to keep in the appropriate manner our vaccines are functioning.”
As such, the Minister disclosed that he has made representation for transportation in hinterland areas to be given keen attention in the Health Ministry’s budget.
Yesterday’s forum which saw the attendance of a wide cross-section of senior local health officials, including Minister within the Public Health Ministry, Dr. Karen Cummings, and was also graced with the presence of Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) Country Representative, Dr. William Adu-Krow, and  Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Ms Patrice LaFleur, who both committed their respective organisation’s continued support to the Ministry’s immunisation effort.
The opening of the forum also saw Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, delivering a presentation titled “Re-orientation to Primary Health Care’ which sought to emphasise the importance of primary health care in achieving laudable results.

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