22 graduate as Pharmacy Assistants in Region 2

Aug 15, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – Twenty-two persons graduated as Pharmacy Assistants from the Ministry of Health’s Pharmacy Assistant programme on Friday in Region Two. The programme is offered through the Ministry’s Health Sciences Education Division.

The simple yet significant ceremony was held at the Jaigobin Hotel in Anna Regina and was attended by Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, the Programme Coordinator, Mr. Sunil Singh; the Programme Administrator, Mr. Teddy Ramkissoon; the Regional Vice Chairman- Of Region Two, Mr. Humace Oodit; the Regional Health Officer, Region Two, Dr. Ranjeev Singh; along with other representatives from the Ministry and Regional Health Services.

According to the ministry, the batch of new Pharmacy Assistants are the first cohort to be trained in the region as the Ministry continues to work towards decentralising its training programmes. The Pharmacy Assistant programme is a pre-service clinical programme that seeks to outfit pharmacy assistants with adequate knowledge, skills, and ability to provide technical support to licensed pharmacists.

The 22 new assistants were trained for nine months before graduating on Friday.

Minister of Health Dr. Anthony said that as the health sector continues to undergo transformation, more trained personnel will be needed. As such, the Ministry is making provisions to offering various training programmes in Guyana and even abroad.

Minister of Health. Dr. Frank Anthony (center) flanked by the graduating students, ministry’s officials and the Regional Administration representatives. (Photo courtesy, Ministry of Health)

“In two to three years, you would start to see visual changes, but, with all of this, we need people, and we need lots of people to be trained in almost every area of medicine. In the public sector, we probably have about two thousand doctors, but if we’re going to specialise people and get them to do more complicated types of surgery, we’ll need to send some of these doctors for further training. We need more persons coming into medicine and we are offering scholarships to those who want to come into medicine so that they can be trained,” the Minister said.

The Minister challenged the graduates to seek opportunities to further advance their studies in the medical field and acquire their Masters and PhDs.

Further, Dr. Anthony said that $500M has been set aside from the budget to start the construction of a nursing school in Region Two. The nursing school is to be built in the compound of the Suddie Hospital.

“We’ll be sure that when we build that nursing school, it will not be just for nurses, but this must be a training facility for all the different categories of workers that we must train for the health sector,” he noted.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director for Health Science Education Division, Chandroutie Persaud stated that the Pharmacy Assistant Programme is the first decentralised programme in Region Two to be successful.

Further, she charged the graduates to remain dedicated, use the challenges faced as a learning experience, and be innovative in their field of work.

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Dr. Frank Anthony, Minister of Health, Ministry of Health, Pharmacy Assistants, programme

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