Govt. agrees to build Kamarang Hospital on 10 acres of land

Jun 05, 2026 News

---

…after three-year stall 

By Khadidja Ba

(Kaieteur News) – The construction of the controversial Kamarang Hospital, Region Seven will proceed on the 10 acres of land allocated by the village council instead of 15 acres the government requested. The Village Council objected to the construction being done on the additional acreage because it is occupied by farmers.

The decision was made following a recent government outreach to the community, Toshao Alma Marshall of Kamarang-Warawatta, told Kaieteur News (KN).

Marshall said that during the Cabinet outreach, which included President Irfaan Ali, she produced documented evidence that the village council, in 2023, requested that the hospital be built on 10 acres of land but never received a response from the government.

She further stated that during the outreach she “clarified” and asked the president and other officials “to erase that false report… since I had the written permission in my hand.”

The Toshao was however unable to provide any other detail relative to the hospital’s construction.

“The Village Council is yet to be told who takes the contract and at what cost,” she told this publication on Thursday.

The Ministry of Health had accused the Kamarang- Warawatta Village Council alongside the Amerindian People’s Association of blocking the development of a specialty hospital in the community.

“One of the most recent efforts by the government to further modernise the health care system in the hinterland was actually prevented by Mr. [Lemmuel] Thomas and his agency; the Amerindian Peoples Association [APA], who discouraged the community leadership of Kamarang, Upper Mazaruni, from approving to construct a modern hospital in the community, which would have taken access to specialised surgical and specialists care, reducing referral of Indigenous patient to the city of Georgetown, creating at least four hundred additional jobs for young Amerindian youths, and improving patients outcomes.

That stalled project would have required community participation, materials from the communities, which would have generated much-needed revenue and would have improved the livelihood of the Amerindian people in the upper Mazaruni region 7,” the Ministry of Health said in April.

Both Toshao Marshall and the APA disputed the government’s assertions.

The statement by the Ministry followed Thomas’ presentation at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), where he highlighted a deepening health crisis among Guyana’s Indigenous populations.

Addressing the forum on Tuesday, 21^st April, 2026, during a discussion on Indigenous health in the context of conflict, the APA warned that “institutional discrimination” and “cultural exclusion” continue to define national health policies. While acknowledging the Government’s recent investments in hospital infrastructure and professional staffing, the APA argued that these measures fail to address the systemic inequities that have persisted for generations. The President’s testimony painted a harrowing picture of the physical barriers to care, noting that elders must still trek through mountains, valleys, and rivers to reach basic medical facilities.

The intervention detailed how men are left vulnerable to life-threatening emergencies without access to anti-venom, while women are frequently forced to cross international borders to find safe birthing conditions. Furthermore, the APA raised an urgent alarm regarding the mental health of Indigenous youth, reporting that a rise in suicide cases is being neglected by the current healthcare framework.

Like the APA President, Toshao Marshall in an interview with Kaieteur News, presented a different narrative from that of the Ministry of Health, one of community consensus, proactive land allocation, and a lack of official communication from the state. According to Marshall, the village held a general meeting during a visit from a high-level government team to discuss the project.

It was the village council that decided on how much land to allocate for the project.

“I indeed found a letter in the office that stated that amount of land was released,” Marshall stated, noting that she has the documents ready to defend the council’s position. “I don’t know where this information is coming from, politically,” Toshao Marshall told Kaieteur News. The Toshao expressed frustration over being “attacked”.

The APA issued a scathing press release on May 1, rejecting the Ministry’s assertions. The NGO clarified that it plays no role in the internal governance or land-use decisions of village councils.

“The Ministry’s claims are intended to mislead the public and make the APA a scapegoat for its own deficiencies,” the statement read. The APA further challenged the ministry to produce any record showing the organization discouraged the hospital’s construction.

Toshao Marshall had previously noted that despite the village’s cooperation, there had been no official word on why the project had not progressed on the allocated site. “There was no acknowledgement letter to say the 10 acres of land you released is unfit, nothing whatsoever,” Marshall said. “I have my defence there to make,” she remarked.

---

• Kamarang Hospital, Kamarang-Warawatta, Toshao

---