Latest update November 15th, 2024 1:00 AM
$1.6 B COVID-19 hospital to be used as isolation centre – President Ali
The $1.6 BCOVID -19 Hospital at Liliendaal, East Bank Demerara.
President Dr Irfaan Ali has announced a move by Government to use the $1.6B COVID-19 retrofitted Ocean View Hospital located at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara as an isolation centre for patients affected by the disease.
To this end, President Ali said that arrangements are being made to have a facility that caters to at least 150 patients requiring isolation. During a live streamed update on Guyana’s response to the pandemic, Dr. Ali said that his administration has been working at implementing an all-encompassing approach to dealing with the disease.
He alluded to a holistic approach to addressing the pandemic.
“The objective of our all-encompassing approach is to ensure that the multifaceted aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic is addressed…We are not only looking at the health aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are targeting measures that would re-create jobs, ensure income goes back to the people, improve spending in the economy whilst at the same time, securing our population with the implementation of good health scenarios,” he said.
In addressing some of these issues, the President said that the Government is pursuing delivering relief to the strained health system and workers; increasing testing throughout Guyana; maintaining and addressing public health and safety; delivering stimulus incentives and arrangements to encourage business stability; delivering relief measures for persons affected at the household level; and delivering education to children in non-conventional avenues as efforts are made to adopt to the new environment.
To tackle the other ongoing challenges, the Head of State said that Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, had advised that a number of interventions have been made to improve test turnaround time, testing capability, human resource capacity, infrastructure and equipment.
To address those needs, Dr. Ali said that the Government moved to improve capabilities from a position of 40-60 per day to 96-140 per day.
Notwithstanding this significant improvement, he said that there is a backlog of 700 tests results.
“This is as a result of the manual PCR machines currently used and also the lack of medical technologists. Two weeks ago, we had one medical technologist working. By the end of this week, 30 new medical technologists will be trained in PCR testing from both the public and private sector and will be available from next week.
In addition to this, two new automatic machines will be sourced to cut testing turnaround time from nine hours to two hours. This will not only clear the backlog but significantly improve our capacity to do mass testing, which will become necessary in the eventual opening up of our economy and country,” the President said.
In terms of the essential medical supplies, he said that government has moved to procure an additional 100,000 N-95 masks.
“We currently have four working ventilators at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). By next week, 29 additional ventilators will be in country to be utilised not only at GPHC but in all the regions. The Ministry has also advised that additional healthcare personnel including doctors have been deployed to hotspot areas in Regions Seven and Nine,” the President added.
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