$10,000 voucher is to improve people’s healthcare – Jagdeo

Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has dismissed any insinuation that the $10,000 universal healthcare voucher for Guyanese is aimed at anything other than improving the health of the country’s citizens.
Among the measures announced in the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) fifth national budget, which is to the tune of $1.382 trillion – its second fiscal plan that is over the trillion-dollar mark – it was announced that a $10,000 universal healthcare voucher will be issued to every single person to help finance a basic menu of medical tests.
Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, during the January 17 presentation of the 2025 Budget, explained that this initiative is expected to cost the Government an estimated $5 billion and potentially reach some 500,000 persons.

During his weekly press conference on Thursday last, VP Jagdeo was questioned about the transparency of this initiative and safeguards against the money going towards medical institutions that are perceived to be associated with his administration.
“It is this narrow-mindedness… [that] is feeding into a conspiracy theory… It’s like counting pennies when there is a big picture all the time to improve people’s healthcare across the country,” he posited.
According to the Vice President, when persons get the $10,000, they are free to go to any of the large number of private healthcare institutions to get their tests done.
“They get their vouchers. They can then choose where they want to go,” Jagdeo contended.
Otherwise, he noted that persons can opt not to utilise the healthcare voucher, that way, there would be no allegations of Government trying to funnel money to any medical institutions.
“Go the public hospitals because it’s done for free there. You might just have to wait a little bit longer… But if [50,000 people] showed up then they would overload our institutions,” he argued.

Moreover, the VP went on to point out that why should private institutions that invest millions of dollars to enhance healthcare delivery in the country also not benefit from a Government initiative. In fact, he outlined that similar practices are done in other countries around the world.
“If people are making investments in healthcare, then as Guyanese they can also benefit from services procured by the State as done in the United States of America (USA) and any other part of the world. But to say that when we give a person a $10,000 voucher that we’re funnelling money to a particular entity [when] we just give people choices here. They have greater choices now,” Jagdeo stressed.
This $10,000 universal healthcare voucher initiative is part of the Guyana Government’s numerous new and ongoing initiatives aimed at providing the best possible care for citizens.
Back in October, President Dr Irfaan Ali had announced that the Government would be introducing a universal healthcare voucher of $10,000 per child but this has since been amended to target all Guyanese countrywide.
In 2024, the Government introduced vouchers for eye tests and spectacles for school children, as well as pensioners. Those vouchers, valuing $3000 for eye tests and $15,000 for spectacles, are valued $840 million and $966 million respectively.
To date, more than 48,000 eye tests have been conducted as part of this programme, and more than 36,000 spectacle vouchers to children ages one to 17 years during last year.
Additionally, almost 19,000 senior citizens received eye care support, while more than 7,000 shut-in elderly persons benefitted from home-based medical care.
Last year, the Ali-led Administration had also rolled out a Cervical Cancer Screening Programme, which targets females between the ages of 21 to 65, who will get an $8,000 voucher for a screening test.