$100M for each region to address health sector’s staffing accommodation

Moving closer in the direction of creating a world-class healthcare system with proper infrastructure, the Guyana Government will be injecting $100 million for every administrative region to address staffing accommodation across the sector.
This was announced by Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Monday during the Regional Health Officer’s Meeting – organised to foster a collaborative approach between the administration and its healthcare partners to effectively deliver healthcare across the regions of Guyana.

He outlined that over the last two years, each region would have received $100 million to address infrastructure and other shortfalls. This is separate from the regional budgetary allocation.
“You got $100 million last year. You got another $100 million this year. And we are going to give you another $100 million so that we can look at improving accommodation for staffing across these different regions. Over the last two years, we have been investing in making sure there are better conditions for the patients coming to us and the staff who have been working with us,” he told the RHOs.
Attention has revolved around primary healthcare, where consultants from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) would have analysed the system and recommended 216 areas of intervention. To do this, he recognised that infrastructure, human resources and equipment deficit were important aspects to be revamped.
“We recognise that for health posts, that the population size might be smaller. But nevertheless, because they’re geographically spread across the regions, it might be important that we focus there as well. Now, if we’re thinking about offering these 216 interventions, a number of things we’ll have to look at, whether we have infrastructure in place at the various health centres to be able to offer these services,” Dr Anthony outlined.

Targets
Government intends to bolster the primary healthcare programme in such a way that patients can be treated at health posts, rather than being referred to hospitals for most illnesses.
The Health Ministry has targeted leishmaniasis, chagas, leprosy, filaria and soil-transmitted helminths for elimination. But HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis are also under watch. In the case of HIV, strides have been made in making self-testing available, PREP drugs and expanded services. However, such services must not operate in isolation and people must not be lost after diagnosis.
He emphasised that primary care physicians must be equipped to treat such patients.
Dr Anthony noted, “For HIV, it means we have to upfront some resources which we have been doing…A couple of years ago, HIV treatment used to be a very specialised area. As we move forward, this must be incorporated in whatever we’re doing. So, we can’t keep it vertically. We can’t separate it out. We should have this service more widely available and all primary care physicians must know how to treat this.”
There are under 500 cases of TB in Guyana but malaria still poses a challenge in mining communities along Regions One (Barima-Waini), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo).

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among the younger population has been low – a step that can help reduce cervical cancer rates in the country. With plans to offer three checkups in a child’s school life, at the nursery, primary and secondary levels, respectively, attention will be paid on hiking vaccine stats.
“Right now, the numbers are very low and we need to increase the uptake of HPV vaccination. Why is this necessary? It is necessary because when we look at our cervical cancer rates among women, it is the second most prominent cancer…So this is something that we have to pay attention to. We can prevent cervical cancer from happening if we have a wider coverage of HPV vaccination.”
By the end of the month, 19 telemedicine sites will also come on stream. Many diagnoses have been made in remote communities following the introduction of this service.
The senior health official disclosed, “We are hoping that through this service we will be able to improve the quality of service that you’re offering. Already what we’re seeing is that there might be patients who are really sick but the community health worker in that specific area might not identify how sick they were. But when they were having the exchange with the doctors, the doctors were able then to make a proper diagnosis.” (G12)