Equitable healthcare delivery needed in Guyana – Dr Shako

By Utamu Belle

Director of Regional and Clinical Services within the Public Health Ministry, Dr Kay Shako believes that in order to achieve a higher level of standard health care across the country, equitable and efficient delivery of healthcare services is needed.

While addressing a public consultation at the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) recently, Dr Shako noted that while the Public Health Ministry has its mandate of ensuring adequate health care, it would have to depend on other agencies and organisations for assistance, adding that the regional administration also played a role in healthcare delivery. In her review of healthcare delivery in Guyana, Dr Shako contended that there has been some improvement. However, she said Regions One, Seven, Eight and Nine have had an inequitable distribution of healthcare services when compared to the other regions.

“I want to tell you today that the healthcare delivery process in Guyana has been improved to some extent…When we think about the delivery of health care here in Guyana, we need not to think about the Ministry of Public Health alone, but health is a collaborative process…In order for us to have effective and efficient delivery of health care, we need to put certain strategies in place…Now when we look at how health care is being administered, we discovered also that health care is not equitably administered… so our mandate is to ensure that all of our Regions within Guyana enjoy, to some extent the same delivery of health care,” she noted.

Dr Shako reiterated that presently, the focus of the Ministry was on the strengthening of health systems, particularly equitable distribution of health care. As such, she said embedded within the plans for 2015- 2016, was ensuring that all health centres across the country were equipped with at least one doctor.

Drug shortage

In shedding some light on the issue of drug shortages at hospitals across the country, Dr Shako said doctors’ presence at health centres countrywide has contributed to the problem. An increase in drug supply, she established, would be a direct way of helping to solve the problem.

“When we talk about the drug shortage that we have, none of us did not think about it being due to the number of doctors we would have had at the various health centres that would have been utilising those drugs that we have now. That is why we are having a shortage. So the process right now is to ensure that we have an increase in our drug supply, because if we have more doctors, we cannot order the same amount of drugs.”

Upgrading health facilities

Further, Dr Shako said maintaining and upscaling health facilities in hinterland locations to ensure that they have the capacity to deliver standard healthcare services was also a priority, noting that the Bartica Hospital, Region Seven is one of the locations which has all of the specialist care that is needed for efficient healthcare delivery.

The hospital, Dr Shako said, does not have to depend on medical outreaches, since all areas are equipped with necessary doctors and specialists. She added that the Ministry was currently working on areas such as Mahdia and Regions One and Nine to ensure that the hospital facilities are brought up to standard. The focus, she said, is on having specialists present at the facilities to ensure health care moves to another level.