Technical partners commit $$$ to crisis response centre

Aug 06, 2015 News

A sum of G$6 million has been committed by technical partners of the Ministry of Public Health towards the establishment of a crisis response centre. This disclosure was made on Monday when officials of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) facilitated a meeting to familiarise Ministers of Public Health, Dr George Norton and Dr Karen Cummings, along with Permanent Secretary (ag), Trevor Thomas, with the extent of PAHO’s collaboration with the Ministry.
Speaking at that forum, PAHO Resident Representative, Dr William Adu-Krow, revealed that a request was last year made by the then Ministry of Health to help bring into being a crisis response centre.
The request came on the heels of fears of the Ebola virus entering Guyana which saw the Ministry of Health engaging proactive measures to help tackle any potential case that occurred here.
And according to Dr Adu-Krow, PAHO had since then committed the sum of G$3 million towards the centre. An equal sum was also committed by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the PAHO Resident Representative informed.
Dr Adu-Krow also noted that since a meeting where the commitment was made, nothing further was discussed on the matter. As such he appealed to the Permanent Secretary (ag) to have the matter followed up with a view of having the centre implemented.
While it was expected that the centre would cater to the Ministry’s Ebola response, Dr Adu-Krow, made it clear that it could serve as a centre to tackle other health crises.
“I think we need to have this crisis response centre up and running so that when we have a crisis, it can serve as the nerve or brain centre for the Ministry in terms of how we operate,” Dr Adu-Krow posited.
Even as she spoke highly of the assured support to aid the establishment of the centre, the Minister within the Ministry of Health spoke of her desire to see it being implemented at the earliest possible time.
“I am very happy to have the crisis centre,” said Dr Cummings, as she also turned her attention to the need for the health sector to roll out both regional and national crisis response plans. PAHO has also committed its support to aid these initiatives.
In her deliberations, Dr Cummings vocalised her knowledge of a regional plan for natural disasters which was crafted by Dr Colin James.
“I don’t know where that is, if it is sitting on someone’s desk,” said the Minister as she pointed out that often noble projects are introduced but not followed up.
“If we don’t sustain them, then we have to start over and re-invent the wheel. I would like to follow-up on the regional plan and on our national disaster (preparedness) plans,” added Minister Cummings.
“We want Guyana to be the ‘Mecca’ of quality care in this part of the Region,” the Minister said as she emphasised the need for continued support from technical partners such as PAHO to help improve the level of service offered by the public health sector.

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Technical partners commit $$$ to crisis response centre

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