Region Four Health Centre certified to offer “equal and non-discriminatory health care”

May 21, 2019 News

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In an attempt to ensure that patients are not discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, a LGBTQ-friendly health centre has been introduced. Taking the LGBTQ-friendly lead in health care is the East Bank Demerara Herstelling Health Centre.

The Region Four Health Centre is the first health facility to be so certified here in Guyana by the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination [SASOD] of Guyana.
At a simple ceremony, Director of SASOD, Joel Simpson, handed over the certificate to Region Four Regional Health Officer, Dr. Quincy Jones, in the presence of a number of representatives of the LGBTQ community.
The tactical collaboration was praised by those who attended the handing over ceremony on Friday which coincided with the observance of International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia [IDAHOTB].
The Herstelling Health Centre has been certified for the next year. This historic certification, according to Simpson, is expected to see a number of other health centres across Guyana being so certified.
This development, according to Simpson, comes through his organisation efforts at partnering with Government to eliminate stigma and discrimination against people within the LGBTQ community. He said that the certification falls under a project being undertaken by SASOD, noting that there are clear quality standards in place that are required to sensitize at least 90 percent of the staff at the health centre.
“We are required to do pre and post-testing and ensure that there is increased knowledge and understanding. This was demonstrated by the training we did at the Herstelling Health Centre. As part of the ongoing project, we would be doing continuous monitoring, training and assessment of staff,” said Simpson.
He added, “There would be some mystery patients on a quarterly basis coming here [Herstelling Health Centre] to see what kind of services they would be receiving as LGBTQ members. Then on an annual basis we would be doing patient feedback surveys.”
He pointed out that a wide cross section of patients would be surveyed with the view to reviewing the quality of health care services in terms of the various demographics.
He said, too, that the move in this direction is aimed at ensuring that the initiative is not a short term intervention where people reduce their biases temporarily and they resume at a later date. “We want to ensure that this is sustained and to do that, we have to take a multi-pronged approach to do training, monitoring and accessing, and make sure that we are gathering data about the quality of services that are being provided,” the SASOD official said.
Even as he stressed the need for other Regions to come on board the LGBTQ-friendly movement, Simpson pointed out that the targeted community is faced with many challenges and his organisation is focused on forging tactical partnerships to help bring an end to these, especially as it relates to health care.
“The time has come for persons to recognise that health care is holistic and therefore it’s not only what goes on within the clinics and labs but rather it’s looking at the complete person as they have to be treated as whole and complete. It also requires providing sensitive targeted care for those members.”
Acting Regional Health Officer, Dr. Christopher Seetram, commenting on the certification said that he and the rest of the region are very excited by the laudable development.
He said that he remains confident over the level and quality of health care that is being provided by the staff at the Herstelling Health Centre.
In fact, he is confident that the other health centres within Region Four will soon follow suit since he is convinced that “the region’s staff doesn’t stigmatise and discriminate against the LGBTQ community.”
As he stressed on the importance of privacy, confidentiality and non-discrimination across the region, Dr. Seetram said that the realisation of SASOD’s quality standard is an indication that health care within the region continues to be a top priority by those entrusted to maintain it. “From a human rights point of view, we are addressing two human rights violations…one is the right to privacy and information and we find at times that the LGBTQ community are often marginalised and stigmatised and they do not have that right as such, their rights are often violated.
Another right is that they, at times, don’t have access to quality health care and cost effective health care. So this initiative in a sense, fosters an environment where all persons irrespective of whether they are part of the LGBTQ community or not, they can access equal and non-discriminatory health care,” Dr. Seetram asserted.

 

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