$150M spent to upgrade Mabaruma hospital

Dec 20, 2022 News

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Kaieteur News – As part of the United Kingdom US$4.2M ‘Smart Hospital Initiative’, the Mabaruma Regional Hospital located in Region One has been upgraded into a ‘smart’ health facility to the tune of US$750,000 (GY$150M).

The Mabaruma ‘Smart’ Hospital is among five hospitals upgraded through the Smart Health Care Facilities in the Caribbean Project, a collaboration between the Government of Guyana and the United Kingdom (UK).

The Smart Hospital concept refers to a medical institution that offers efficient and up-to-date medical services while also being climate resilient. The project is being funded by the UK Government through UK Aid with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) /World Health Organization (WHO) as the implementing partner.

Present at the commissioning ceremony on Monday was British High Commissioner to Guyana, Jane Miller who noted in her remarks that when the initiative of the smart hospitals came to the Caribbean Region, it was to look at how they can improve the infrastructure of the facilities to make sure that they are resilient.

She shared that across the Caribbean, they choose several countries and to date they have upgraded and improved 55 facilities of which five of them are in Guyana. “So in Guyana, we have trained over 50 people to do assessment across the country to look at health facilities and to do an assessment on their safety, on their resilience, on their infrastructure, on their lighting etcetera, and five facilities were chosen, and I’m very proud that this is fourth facility, there is one more facility to be launched early next year,” she explained.

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony in his address to the gathering on Monday said that the UK Government smart hospital project has helped them to refashion a lot of the countries healthcare facilities.  He explained that the work they did was to look at different healthcare facilities in Guyana and come up with how they can refashioned them to become more climate resilient.

“Which include, as been mentioned before, it must be more energy efficient, they must not be prone to flooding, and we can use these techniques in future development to ensure that all our facilities are equipped to this standard and to demonstrate the effect of this, one of the things that we were able to do was to look at five different faculties,” he stated.

The five different health facilities currently under the Smart Hospital initiative are Diamond, Mabaruma, Lethem, Leonora and yet to be commissioned, the Paramakatoi Hospital. The Minister had noted before in one of his COVID-19 interviews that these five hospitals that they looked at are being upgraded to make them more climate resilient “meaning that they shouldn’t be flooded. They should have better flow within the hospital itself where it’s possible, instead of using power from the grid, it would be using solar power and that the water from rainfall, we can convert that and use it within the facility.”

Delivering the featured address at yesterday’s ceremony was President Irfaan Ali who expressed gratitude to the UK Government for the partnership in improving the service of healthcare in Guyana. The President noted that the smart hospital is just one part of the equation and that “we need smart people, we need smart type of thinking, we need a smart approach, we need a smart vision, so all of this would allow the facility itself to be optimally utilised.’

During his remarks also, the President made mentioned that his Government has plans to upgrade all hinterland health facilities that are not up to par. He shared that over the next three years, the government plans to spend some $125 billion to upgrade facilities in areas such as Lethem, Kato, Mahdia, Kamarang, Mabaruma, Moruca, Bartica and Port Kaituma.

“We are uncomfortable with some of the facilities that people come to have healthcare services, that is why I’m making it very clear that every health facility must has some basic services, proper washroom facilities for patients using those facility, proper waiting area, these are key,” the President said. With his vision for a world-class healthcare in Guyana, the President added “We want to invest in every region to ensure there is a facility to support the patients.”

Kaieteur News understands that the Mabaruma Hospital was upgraded by contractor Chung Global Enterprise and some of the works done includes, refurbishing of the operating theatres, the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU), the recovery room, the maternity wards, pharmacy, roof repairs, retiled the kitchen area of the facility, construction of battery room, resurfacing of wheelchair ramp just to name a few.

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