Plans have been announced to expand the Government’s health boat initiative, which has been improving healthcare access in riverine communities and other regions across Guyana.
File photo: The health boats that were handed over to the Health Ministry in December 2024 funded by GAVI through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
During the Budget in Focus programme, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony announced these plans following the reveal of a $143.2 billion allocation for the health sector in the 2025 National Budget.
These vessels were designed over a two-year period to address the healthcare challenges of Regions One (Barima-Waini) and Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), with a particular focus on maternal health and immunisation needs in riverine and remote communities.
The boats initially serve numerous villages, including Kamwata, Parakeese, Karaburi, Santa Rosa, and Waramuri Islands in Region One, as well as Wipa, Sandhill, Kaibarupai, and Orinduik in Region Eight.
Equipped with solar-powered vaccine refrigerators, maternal transport cots, life jackets, retractable beds to transfer emergency patients, and 200-HP engines, these boats represent a significant leap forward in addressing healthcare access.
The boats are expected to provide essential services, including emergency transportation for pregnant women and children, vaccine delivery, and general healthcare outreach to underserved areas.
According to the Minister, they will continue to examine the boats to see how they work, and once they see fit, they will start the replication process.
“So we’ll evaluate how these two boats work, and once we see the benefits of it, we’ll replicate them and put them in other areas because certainly reaching these communities is very important to us. You know, hospitals, clinics, hubs, boats that can service communities in terms of health—all of these things require staffing.”
He also relayed the challenges that prompted the use of these boats, which were mainly distributing essential medical necessities to residents of riverine communities.
“So I think one of our best programmes that we have in the health sector is our immunisation programme. So we do 19 different antigens, and we usually get between 95 per cent to 100 per cent coverage, which is extraordinary so, the nurses and community health workers, they go that extra mile, they go look for that last child and make sure they get their vaccines. And one of our challenges would have been in riverine communities.”
He added that another reason for the replication of the boats is due to the effectiveness seen so far.
“So these boats are equipped with cold storage, so you can have your vaccines on board, and it’s at the right temperature. The refrigerators are powered by solar, so it’s really nice and so we’re able to move around to riverine communities and do the vaccination, and that has been a real help.”
According to the Minister, the main reason for the replication of these boats in other areas of Guyana is due to the effectiveness seen.
In 2023, Dr Anthony handed over five boats and engines purchased with $23 million in Government of Guyana funds.
Meanwhile, the Health Minister revealed that expansion is also on the way for schoolchildren to get medical tests.
“And now what we want to do is to make sure that we continue the school medical tests so this year, we are going to expand it. We’re not just going into nursery, but primary and secondar, so we want to expand…so a child coming to school now would have at least a test done once in nursery, then again in primary, and again in secondary and we’ll pick up things along the way and be able to fix it before it becomes a problem,” he explained.
According to him, some 20,000 children have undergone medical tests in schools last year.
“What we were doing for these nursery school children was to check their eyes to make sure they’re seeing well, check their hearing, do a dental checkup for them, and then do a general checkup for them to see whether they have any problems. And we did about 20,000 nursery school children up to last year. And then we started primary school children.”
