Ultrasound machines to help improve delivery of health care

Jan 12, 2019 News

Even as the public health sector strives to improve its delivery of health care, the Ministry of Public Health was yesterday the recipient of three ultrasound machines.
The machines were handed over to the Public Health Ministry by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).
Director of the International Desk at the Ministry of Public Health, Mr. Denroy Tudor explained that the ultra sound machines were contributions from the North York General Hospital, who donated them to the Guyana Christian Charities Consulate in Toronto, Canada.
Tudor said the North York General Hospital had given four Ultra Sound Machines last year, with one intended for the privately-operated St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. Mercy Hospital however uplifted its machine before Friday’s official handing-over ceremony.
During the significant but simple ceremony held in the Public Health Ministry’s Lot 1 Brickdam, Georgetown compound, Senior Minister, Mrs. Volda Lawrence, in making reference to the donated machines, said that one will be given to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre on the East Bank corridor, another will go to the C.C. Nicholson Hospital on the East Coast of Demerara, and the other will be left in the care of the Ministry’s Materials Management Unit [MMU].
It was revealed yesterday that the machine at the MMU will cater to future emergencies in the public health system.

Officials at the handing over ceremony yesterday.

Speaking at the ceremony yesterday too was Dr. Fiona Perry, the Deputy Director, Regional Health Services [DRHS], who pointed out that the donation to the C.C Nicholson and the Diamond Diagnostic Centre will improve health care delivery to patients, including those travelling from Kwakwani, East Berbice/Corentyne [Region 10] and other far-flung locations.
Dr. Perry welcomed the donation, which she described as timely, noting that the ultrasound machines “will decrease the patient load” of the service being offered specifically at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), by allowing patients to access the services at the Regional Hospitals, thus ending the need for them to seek the service at the usually-overcrowded GPHC.
Both Perry and Tudor agreed that the donation of the machines will afford patients, improved health services offered by the regional hospitals and serve as a boost to the novel smart hospital initiative currently undertaken by the Public Health Ministry, with technical and financial support from the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation [PAHO/WHO].
Guyana has moved to adopt the PAHO/WHO-promoted SMART hospital initiative, which Minister within the Public Health Ministry, Dr. Karen Cummings, has said is a “new way of delivering healthcare in the 21st century”.
The novel healthcare strategy seeks to improve the productivity and efficiency of hospitals in a bid to reduce their operational costs and, in the private sector, help to improve their margins.
The SMART hospital plan is rapidly becoming necessary, since patients are quickly evolving into consumers and are demanding optimal ‘customer satisfaction’. The purpose of this SMART environment is to improve existing procedures for the provision of advanced means of medical care, and to open up new opportunities for medicine.
Two years ago, Guyana embarked on the SMART hospitals programme, which includes retrofitting existing identified health structures, making them resilient to the vagaries of nature, including natural disasters.

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