Former GPHC Chair concerned about Dr. Rambarran’s resignation

May 31, 2017 News

– says it could hamper measures to restore UG accreditation

In recent weeks a number of changes have occurred at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC] including the resignation of Director of Health Education, Dr. Madan Rambarran. Dr. Rambarran in an invited comment to

Dr. Carl ‘Max’ Hanoman

this publication insisted that this decision was premised on his desire to move on.
Several officials of the institution are saying that Dr Rambarran’s decision to part ways with the hospital has already started to gravely impact the hospital. There are reports that suggest that Dr. Rambarran’s decision to resign was prompted by his concerns about the management of the hospital. However, since there is reportedly no one to fill the void left by Dr. Rambarran, there has been speculation that his departure could affect efforts that were made towards having the University of Guyana [UG] regain its accreditation.
Concerns in this regard were recently amplified by former Chairman of the Georgetown Hospital, Dr. Carl ‘Max’ Hanoman. According to Dr. Hanoman, Dr. Rambarran has been an integral part of the process. In fact there are reports that measures that were put in place to cater to training of students of medicine at the hospital could currently be in jeopardy.
The process of regaining accreditation for UG was up to earlier this year ongoing, with the accreditation body considering submissions from UG.
UG’s School of Medicine lost its accreditation in 2015 and has been instructed by the Jamaica-based Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP), to put a series of measures in place if it is to regain international accreditation.
Part of the requirement from CAAM-HP to facilitate accreditation is the construction of proper facilities at the GPHC to offer instruction to medical students. A local business had thrown its financial support behind this venture.
Efforts weren’t only focused on having the re-accreditation of UG, but also to ensure that it is sustained. According to Dr. Hanoman, with the support of Dr. Rambarran, he’d crystallised an idea to make the instructional facility a money-making venture, one that was gaining the full support of the hospital’s administration.

Dr. Madan Rambarran

Dr. Hanoman is concerned that the absence of Dr. Rambarran could considerably affect this venture. It was envisaged that the instructional facilities could have been used to train offshore medical students at a cost. It was anticipated that the fee that such a venture attracts would have gone towards “retooling” the hospital, Dr. Hanoman posited.
”We will buy equipment…so in six to eight months’ time different areas of the hospital will be ‘full service’, so that we wouldn’t have a problem when the accreditation team comes,” said an optimistic Dr. Hanoman, who noted that this is especially important for the School of Medicine.
“I don’t know what is the plan of the new chairperson or the management of the hospital for that matter and I don’t want to influence their plans, but at the same time I think this whole venture is still important for the hospital and the people of this nation,” said Dr. Hanoman, who is convinced that without the support of Dr. Rambarran, measures already in place could possibly collapse.
It has been said that Dr. Rambarran has taken with him a great deal of institutional knowledge crucial to the various aspects of the hospital’s education programme.
Not so long ago, Dr. Rambarran pointed out that while efforts are consistently being made to train doctors to deliver an improved service within the public health system, other health workers are also being targeted. Complementing the training of doctors, he’d said, is the higher training of nurses, technologists, pharmacists, among other health workers.