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Overseas based doctors set to bring support to local health sector
Dr. Lewis (at centre) with his medical colleagues
In a matter of days a visiting medical team is slated to arrive to lend its support to the local health sector. The support, which will come as part of the observance of Cancer Awareness Month, will see a number of overseas doctors with vast experience volunteering their expert services.
The visiting team will include Dr. Theophilus Lewis and Dr. Berman Saunders who, among others, have been coming to Guyana over the years to give their support to health care.
Their visits have been facilitated by the United States-based Non Governmental Organisation – Organisation for Social and Health Advancement for Guyana (OSHAG). OSHAG was introduced in 2000 with the intent of raising awareness about cancer with a view of having its prevalence considerably reduced.
With their wealth of medical experience, the doctors and others in the medical field, who are scheduled to soon arrive, are slated to not only deliver health care but also help educate local health care workers as part of the efforts to further the work of OSHAG.
According to Dr. Lewis, his collaboration with OSHAG began in 2002 during which time he was seeing an increase number of patients with advanced stages of breast cancer.
“On analyzing our data, the majority of the stage three and four breast cancer patients were from Guyana,” observed Dr Lewis who currently holds the position of Medical Director at Kings County Cancer Centre in the US.
He disclosed recently that when he first met with OSHAG’s President’s Ms Carol-Trim-Bagot, he was only too happy to collaborate to help address the prevailing cancer situation. “I gladly signed on (to OSHAG), as the organization’s mission statement was in line with my vision of providing high quality care to those outside of the United States.”
“Over the last 12 years, I have return yearly to Guyana as part of the OSHAG mission to continue to provide educational forums. As OSHAG partnered with the Caribbean medical mission, direct patient care is also provided in the form of much needed operative interventions at New Amsterdam Hospital,” Dr. Lewis informed.
Dr. Saunders has also been rendering similar support which has in fact been allowing him to fulfill a childhood dream. You see since he was just a tot, he already knew what field of employment he wanted to be in when he grew up. A passion to delve into Medicine came naturally to him especially after witnessing a mother mourning the loss of her son.
Dr. Saunders was just six years old at the time but he recalled hearing the mother lament, “if I could afford a doctor my son would not have died.” He vowed to become a doctor.
Moreover, the concept of care for the poor and other underserved persons was the driving force as he pursued his studies.
Born and raised in Kitty, Georgetown, his formal education began at the Kitty Methodist Primary, then Tutorial High School.
He eventually travelled to Scotland then England and finally the United States of America (US) where he took up residence. In the US he attended Rutgers Newark College of Art and Science then University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) where he obtained his Medical Degree.
Dr. Saunders completed his Residency in Family Practice at Mountainside Hospital, Montclair, New Jersey.
And he too has been able to make a name for himself in the medical field having joined East Orange General Hospital Family Health Center while maintaining a private practice now located in West Orange, New Jersey.
Throughout his medical advancement he has not forgotten his homeland.
Dr. Saunders began travelling to several countries including Guyana and Jamaica in 1979 to voluntarily offer his expertise. He led a team of doctors and nurses to Guyana to provide medication and instructions in health care in the early 2000 for the first time, an undertaking that was also done in collaboration with OSHAG, which, for him, is expected to remain an annual feature.
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