The IDB should not approve this request

Aug 24, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – About three weeks ago, the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Social Services lauded the state of the Region Six health system. Having paid a visit to a number of health institutions and hospitals in the Region, including the New Amsterdam Regional Hospital, the Committee said it observed improvements.

This was certainly not the vote of health which the Inter-American Development Bank pronounced following its evaluation of the New Amsterdam Regional Hospital. That report which was the subject of a Kaieteur News report of Sunday, pointed to glaring deficiencies.

The IDB assessment was contained in a report dated August 2022, a mere days after the visit by the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Social Services.  But it was a desktop review, the findings of which are at odds with the committee’s findings.

The IDB desktop review found mould on the walls of the surgical rooms and fungus on the external walls of the hospital. And the management, according to the report, claims there has been no maintenance or upgrades since the construction of the building. This could hardly be factual since in May of this year, it was reported that a new maternity unit was due to be completed within two months.

The IDB report also found inadequate space for examination rooms and that the wounds of patient are dressed in a stockroom due to limited space for outpatient care. Kaieteur News reportedly found the public waiting area consisting of wooden benches.

The IDB report found a three-bed operating theatre and a two-bed ICU, both of which were deemed inadequate for the catchment which the hospital serves.  The report also found that the vacuum/suction system as non-functional. The hospital, it is said, lacks the capacity to do pathology analysis which is done at the GPHC. However, it is not unusual for such services to be outsourced. There are some private hospitals, including in Georgetown, which outsource their pathology analyses.

A litany of other problems was identified including waste management and facilities management. The IDB desk study found no waste management plan. The number of toilets was found to be grossly inadequate for the traffic which flows through the hospital and some were said to be not working. The water used in the hospital was said to be untreated and the laundry inefficient.

A number of other problems were identified as part of the assessment done to justify Guyana’s application for a massive loan to improve the New Amsterdam Regional Hospital, the Linden Regional Hospital and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.

The IDB report raises a number of questions concerning the management of the health sector. For one, it calls into question the value obtained in respect to the massive annual Budget appropriations. Each year, we read about the billions which are allocated to the health sector. It is damning that in light of all the hundreds of billions spent, there should be such disconcerting deficiencies uncovered in the IDB report. It is time for a detailed audit of government expenditure on the three hospitals.

Second, the report raises serious concerns about the quality of management of our public hospitals and about the quality of the oversight exercised by the Ministry of Health. Why would Guyana have to depend on an IDB study to uncover all these problems? These things should have been discovered and acted upon by the health authorities. A forensic assessment of the management of our public hospitals needs to be taken immediately. Also, an assessment of the oversight exercised by the Ministry of Health needs to be placed under the microscope.

But we know that this is not going to happen. The PPP/C is impervious when it comes to demands to investigate its own officials and ministries. Asking the PPP/C to investigate itself is like talking to a wall.

The problems which have been identified are basic problems which could have been determined by a simple needs assessment. That it took an IDB study – and a desk one at that – to reveal the glaring deficiencies – is an indictment against our health care management.

But the unkindest cut of all is the realisation that all these problems are being found in a system which each year is propped up with tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars. Where did all the money go?

Now Guyana, an oil producing country, is going to have to borrow to fix this system. And the borrowing is to the tune of billions of dollars.  The IDB should not be lending this money. Unless there is an overhaul of the healthcare system, it will be a waste of time injecting resources to fix problems which ought to have been fixed as part of routine hospital management.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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