Latest update December 16th, 2024 9:00 AM
Private hospital boasts of being lone facility with 24-hour cardiac service
CEO of the Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital, Dr. Madhu Singh.
Although the availability of cardiac services is ever increasing at a number of facilities, one local hospital claims to be soaring above the rest.
To achieve this ambitious goal, the administrators of the hospital in question have reportedly been striving to ensure that they adhere to, without exception, all the rules and regulations governing the delivery of health care in Guyana.
Boasting of leading the way in the delivery of health care is the privately operated Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital. Qualifying the claims coming from the hospital recently was its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Madhu Singh. Her remarks were forthcoming even as she sought to clarify some recent concerns raised about the delivery of cardiac care at the East Street, Georgetown facility.
Dr. Singh not only stated that the Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital has highly qualified professionals at its disposal, but also indicated that it is arguably the only health facility in Guyana that has a cardiologist who attends to all cardiac emergencies on a 24-hour basis.
“Our Cardiologist, Dr. Vladimir Mendoza Rodriguez, who is employed full time…is a specialist cardiologist who has a first and second degree in Cardiology and is fully licensed to practice Cardiology in Cuba, which is his country of qualification,” Dr. Singh assured.
This was in response to a letter writer who had queried whether the cardiologist at the Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital and another facility could practice independently in the countries where they did their fellowships.
The letter writer’s concerns come at a time when this publication is being privy to information that there are some health facilities that are utilising the services of professionals who do not meet the recommendations of the Ministry of Public Health to function as specialists. It is also recommended by the Ministry that all cardiac facilities have a full-time cardiologist.
To specialise in this field a doctor would have had to obtain training overseas.
Based on information sourced from the University of Toronto’s website for instance which offers such training, while a number of persons may have acquired skills to operate in a particular field of health, the nature of their training may not qualify them to function in the capacity of a specialist. According to the University, “fellowship training does not lead to certification by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada [RCPSC] or by the College of Family Physicians of Canada [CFPC]. Fellows, it notes, are classified as either clinical fellows or research fellows with the latter having no patient contact whatsoever. It was further made clear that a clinical fellowship on its own is not a pathway to permanent practice as a specialist or family physician.
However, based on information obtained by this publication, this is exactly the state of affairs that obtains at some health facilities offering cardiac care.
Dr. Singh, in insisting that her facility has no such shortcoming, concluded that the Ministry’s recommendation does not seem to have been applied uniformly to all centres. According to Dr. Singh, her hospital is also the only private dialysis centre that offers direct supervision by a Specialist Nephrologist as required by the Health Facilities Licensing Act.
As she continued to highlight the cardiac capacity at her hospital, Dr. Singh said that in ensuring that patients are afforded a high standard of service, the hospital has a fully equipped Cath Lab. She also boasted of the facility being the only cardiac centre in Guyana that offers cardiac surgical back up. She, however, added: “We do not have any agreement in place to provide surgical back up for other centres. We do this exclusively for our own patients.”
Patients, opting to use the Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital can also benefit from the lowest cost of cardiac tests comparable to other local facilities, according to Dr. Singh. She disclosed that while some facilities have been known to peg the cost of an angiogram at $258,000, the cost at the Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital is $100,000. She said too that while an initial stent could cost as much as $889,000 at some private facilities, at her facility it is $500,000. A second, and all subsequent stents, attract the same cost unlike some other facilities which demand a higher cost.
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