Suddie Hospital to get ultra-sound technician next week

Jul 16, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – Following reports that the Suddie Public Hospital had not been conducting ultrasounds for some months now, since there is no technician at the facility, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, has sought to assure that this will be remedied by next week.

The Suddie Public Hospital

The Minister made the disclosure during his daily COVID-19 update on Thursday. He explained that it was where the technician at the facility had left for Cuba for a month.

According to Dr. Anthony, “we had a Cuban technician who was available at the Suddie hospital, that technician as per our agreement with Cuba has gone home for a month. We have someone who by next week is going to replace him.”

He noted however that it was not a case of the service being absent altogether, “the service is not absent; it’s just that it’s more specialized. So they have ultrasound being done for pregnant women.”

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony

Residents who had raised the situation with this publication had complained that because they were unable to get an ultrasound done at the hospital, they would have to pay to get it done One resident, speaking on condition of anonymity had said that “some places charge around $7,000 and $10,000 for the ultrasound, and when you have real emergency and your relatives are sick and they really need it, you got to find that money to give them and in this hard economic time it’s very hard on patients especially the poor people of the region who go there to try to get the service.”

When contacted for a comment on the reports, the Regional Health Officer of Region Two, Dr. Ranjeev Singh, had stated that the ultrasound system is not down, but that there is no technician at the moment to carry out the procedure.

“What happen is that the Cuban (doctor) who used to operate the machines was sent back to Cuba and we are awaiting the ministry to send someone, because it’s a technician or a doctor, we do not have that person at Suddie at this moment,” he explained.

He had mentioned too, that they reach out to the Ministry for a replacement, and according to him, “the ministry is awaiting some doctors to be sent and technicians from Cuba.” The RHO noted that ultrasounds for emergency cases were being done at the hospital but they were being done by a gynecologist. For other patients seeking the services, he said, there were private institutions that offered the service.

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