Latest update November 5th, 2024 1:00 AM
GAMIP lobbies for health professionals law to cater for licencing of advanced medical imaging practitioners
Vice President of the GAMIP, Ramona Chanderballi.
Kaieteur News – The Guyana Association of Medical Imaging Practitioners (GAMIP) has been leading the way in lobbying efforts to update health laws, which cater to the licencing of advanced technologists in the field.
During a live-aired interview on Kaieteur Radio yesterday, Vice President of the GAMIP, Ramona Chanderballi, disclosed that the association has started to push for the Allied Health Professional Act to be amended to cover the various types of medical imaging professionals.
Chanderballi explained that as it stands, the Allied Health Professional Act only covers radiographers, x-ray technicians, ultra sound technologists or sonographer.
“For instance, I’m a cardiac sonographer which means I do ultrasounds of the heart, yet I’m licenced as a radiographer because the Allied Health Professionals Act does not cater to this specialised area of medical imaging. We are working to change that!” Chanderballi stated.
The GAMIP representative said that while the current legislation mentions the specificity of the several professionals listed, it fails to leave room for the advancement of studies, technology and for those employed in the field.
“Medical imaging is an area of medicine that technology is always developing and the practitioners are constantly expanding their research, studies and training so there is always room for growth, so I believe the law should leave room for this,” Chanderballi added.
She explained further that the Act, notes that in the course of practice of radiography as an X-ray technician, other ultra sound technologist or sonographer professional in the field is subject to terms and limitations imposed on his certificate of practice.
“We want to change that as well because we want to have the laws in to protect the other types of medical imaging professionals who would have spent years working and studying a specific area that the law fails to cover. We are currently discussing the way forward on this,” she said.
At the interim, the GAMIP Vice President said that the Association’s effort to continue to spread awareness is just a part of what the association is seeking to do.
“We are also seeking to build a network and to host a radiology conference here in Guyana to continue to help as well as, secure funding for research and training for the advancement of medical imaging professionals,” she added.
She noted that the association is currently gathering data on those working in making the conference a reality.
Previously, Chanderballi had explained that this is not the association’s first attempt at lobbying efforts to improve the work of those employed in medical imaging.
She noted that GAMIP was founded in the early 2000s, by a group of radiographers but it became defunct shortly after a few years, partly due to Guyana’s notorious brain drain.
She explained the resuscitation of the association advanced after a GAMIP contingent attended the International Society of Radiographers and Radiation Technologists (ISRRT) World Congress in Trinidad in 2018 which was hosted by the Society of Radiographers of Trinidad and Tobago.
Then after several concerted efforts, the medical imaging community moved to restore GAMIP in 2020, with a younger and diverse executive committee, inclusive of different modalities and private-public sector practitioners.
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