New hospital for Bartica

Jan 25, 2023 News

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…as Govt. continues mission to fix broken healthcare system – Min. Anthony

Kaieteur News – Having been allocated some $84.9B from the National Budget, the Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony on Tuesday said that among the projects they are looking to execute this year, is the construction of a hospital at Bartica and the introduction of new telediagnostic services, which can cause the turnaround time for samples sent to the labs be much shorter.

The minister made these announcements during the second-day of the Budget Debates which is being held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. Minister, Anthony during his presentation called out the former government on a number of projects they had promised to execute during their tenure that they did not fulfill.

“I want to go back in 2015, Mr. Speaker; we saw a litany of promises that were made by the APNU/AFC and in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and up to 2020, there were budgets that were presented and in each of those budgets, the then Minister of Finance made statements what would be done in the health sector.” The minister asked, “and I want to ask the Honourable members over there, where are these programmes.”

According to him, his government’s task now is not only to fix the system which the former government has left broken but also to transform it into a world class health care system.”

Minister Anthony said that his government in fixing the primary healthcare system between 2021 and 2022 has upgraded more than 250 health centres and health posts in every region of the country. He explained that they have collaborated with the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) and develop a comprehensive package of services where they would be able to deliver more than 216 interventions at health centres and health posts across the country. “Mr. Speaker among these interventions would be maternal and child healthcare, we would be working to put better diagnosis for infection diseases,” he noted.

Among some of their interventions, the minister listed that during the last year, they distributed some 4,500 spectacles to communities in the hinterland for free. More than 500 persons across the country were screened and given hearing aids and that this year, they are planning to distribute some 1,000 more. “Mr. Speaker to deliver the services at our health posts and health centres because under the APNU not much training was done for health personnel and over the last two years alone, we have trained more than 200 communities health workers so much so that in every health centre and health post in Regions Nine and One, there are at least two communities health workers at each of those centres,” he revealed.

In addition, Anthony stated that over the last two years, the ministry would have provided to hinterland communities at health centres and health posts approximately 31 ATVs, 14 ambulances, 24 boats and nine motorcycles “so that we can improve transportation of the medical personnel and moving of patients.”

“Mr. Speaker all that I just spoke about was fixing the things that they broke, what we have been able to do because as I said, we want to transform what we are doing from the rudimentary to a world-class system and to do this, it requires innovation and it requires the application of technology,” the Health Minister mentioned.

This year, according to the Minister, they are planning to expand the Remote E medicine clinic which was implemented last year. This programme allows medical personnel in the hinterland areas to connect with doctors in the city to deliver healthcare services to their patients. Another plan is the addition of a seventh hospital to the six that were announced last year. As reported on, the government has awarded contracts for six brand new regional hospitals to be built in the country. “Each of these hospitals is 75 inpatients beds, modern theatres, new A&E unit, new imaging suites including CT scans so that we can do better imaging, in addition to these six hospitals, we will be adding a seventh at Bartica and already we have started the design for that hospital and it would have similar amenities,” he highlighted.

He went on to state that apart from these hospitals, they would be introducing new type of services, including what they called telediagnostic or teleophthalmology, or teleradiology and telepathology. And this he shared would cause the turnaround time for samples sent to the labs to be much shorter. In closing, the Minister announced, “Mr. Speaker, we are also working on our oncology suite, new cardiovascular services, we are also going to introduce new guidelines for diabetes in another month or so you would see new national guidelines for diabetes and starting in the first quarter of this year, we would be training 1000 nurses for the health sector.”

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• Bartica, Dr. Frank Anthony, hospital, Minister of Health, National Budget

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