Aspiring neurologist rejected 6 times by APNU/AFC for scholarship

…despite excellent GPA

By Jarryl Bryan

Dr Jason Ramcharran spent a gruelling six-year stint at the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (ELAM) in Cuba and through merit and hard work graduated as one of the top students in his class.

But since returning to Guyana, his efforts to specialise in neurology have been blocked by the very people who should have been helping him. Under the former Government, all six of Dr Ramcharran’s applications for scholarships or sponsorship were denied.
Ramcharran, who turns 30 next month, studied in Cuba from 2008 to 2015 and earned a 5.26 Grade Point Average (GPA) when he graduated second in his class. He recorded almost perfect scores in all the subjects he covered in both theory and practice.
His first posting was at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), but Ramcharran, who hails from La Penitence, Georgetown, always aspired to be a neurologist. He first applied for a Post Graduate Scholarship to study neurology in China in the 2016/2017 academic year.
It did not take long for Ramcharran to run headlong into his first roadblock. In a letter dated February 24, 2016, then Permanent Secretary in the Department of Public Service, Reginald Brotherson wrote the young doctor informing him that his application was being refused because of limited scholarships and “due to the competitive nature of the selection process.”
But that same year, Ramcharran was accepted by the University of Medical Sciences Havana to do the Neurology programme. He approached the Government again, this time writing to the then Minister of State Joseph Harmon seeking sponsorship to do his post-graduate studies in Cuba.
Harmon referred his request to the relevant agency and on June 13, 2016, he got a second rejection letter from Brotherson. This time the letter cited a lack of finances for rejecting him. According to Brotherson in the letter, “due to budgetary constraints, your request cannot be facilitated at this time.”
Undeterred, Ramcharran reapplied in 2017 for a scholarship to study in China. He was again informed by Brotherson in a letter dated March 27, 2017, that he would not be getting the scholarship, this time because of an unnamed requirement he failed to meet.

Hinterland
By May 2017, however, Ramcharran had completed his rotation at GPHC and departed the city to serve the Government at the Imbaimadai health Centre in Imbaimadai, Upper-Mazaruni, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni). While his time in the hinterland was rewarding, it was not without its challenges.
“Some challenges included the breakdown in communication, because the patients would speak Akawaio. But we overcame that by learning a little of the language, as well as building good relationships with the leaders and the community health workers. Other challenges were drug shortages and the Ministry taking long to send in the drugs when we did order it,” Ramcharran said.
Ramcharran also recalled that while in Imbaimadai, he served residents from Chinoweng and Wax Creek. He explained that when he arrived in Chinoweng, the patients were starved of medical attention. During his time there he also saw many emergencies. In a report he wrote up covering the period of June and November 2017, he revealed that a total of 941 patients were seen, inclusive of 12 births and five emergency medivacs.
“There were challenges with limited resources. We needed to make certain calls and important decisions, like patients with snake bites. Calling for medevacs early, because you don’t want, when there’s no plane available or its dark, then the patient experiences complications. So, you had to trust your instinct and your gut and make early judgements,” he said.
One of his rewards from his time in the hinterland was the fact that the experience helped to build his confidence as a doctor and his ability to diagnose conditions. He finished in 2018 and, having been informed by senior officials that serving in the hinterlands was a prerequisite for a scholarship, he reapplied for a post-graduate scholarship to study in Cuba.
“I was shortlisted and invited to an interview, received a positive response but, however, again I received a rejection letter a few weeks afterwards, again no detailed reason was given,” Ramcharran recounted to this publication.
“Out of frustration, I wrote letters to the (then) President of Guyana, HE David Granger, then Prime Minister of Guyana, Moses Nagamootoo (and) Harmon, all of whom replied to my letter and also to senior officials in the Ministry of Public Health, Including the (then) Minister Volda Lawrence and (then) Junior Minister (Dr Karen Cummings) at the said time, neither of whom replied.”
In his June 14, 2018, in response to Ramcharran, then President Granger informed him that his letter was forwarded to the Ministers of Public Service and Health for their attention. Nagamootoo’s personal assistant also wrote to inform him that his letter had been forwarded to then Public Service Minister Dr Rupert Roopnaraine.
But he received another letter from Brotherson, informing him that his interview was unsuccessful “due to the competitive nature of the selection process and limited number of scholarships available.”
In fact, he got two letters in July 2018 from Brotherson. The second one reinforced the rejection of his application, informing him that the Ministry of the Presidency could not help “due to budgetary constraints.”
Ramcharran reapplied for the scholarship in 2019. Although he is yet to receive a rejection letter or even any feedback from the Department of Public Service, the fact that his fellow interviewees have long been informed about their results does not bode well for him.

Times have changed
But times have changed. For one, there has been a change of Government, with President Dr Irfaan Ali being sworn in as President of Guyana on August 2. Another change has been the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected 925 persons and claimed 31 lives in Guyana as of Saturday.
In a recent post on social media, Ramcharran brought attention to his predicament and expressed his frustration at the lack of clinical neurologists in Guyana, a field he still yearns to specialise in. He noted that despite the neurological complications caused by COVID-19, the country lacks the expertise to adequately address the issue.
“Imagine, if just one percent of those positive patients were to develop neurological complications, it will constitute a burden to our already overloaded public health system… It would have surely been beneficial to have invested in your human resources who have the passion, desire and ability to specialize in clinical neurology.”
Instead, Ramcharran recalled how the previous Administration shut the door to upward mobility in his face and denied him the chance to pursue his dreams of being a clinical neurologist, under the rubric of “budgetary constraints.”