Govt to bring in “specialised help” to clear medical backlog

– to prioritise women, children

President Dr Irfaan Ali has pledged investments by his Government into clearing the backlog of surgeries in the public health sector with a focus on women and children.
During a meeting with senior health officials and Department Heads of hospitals across the country on Friday, the Head of State asked for a list of the surgeries that needed to be done and committed to having the needed specialists brought in to do them.
“We have been receiving several requests to support our healthcare system from different stakeholders. I want us, together, to agree which are the key areas in which we have a backlog. If we have a backlog in a specific area, which are these areas and which areas you require us to bring in specialised help, so that we can clear those backlogs,” Ali told the gathering at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC).

According to Ali, surgeries for women and children will be a priority in clearing these backlogs.
“I want us to spend time clearing backlogs, especially issues affecting women and children. I want us to identify the areas of backlog and we’re going to invest in clearing those backlogs,” he declared.
Only back in February, President Ali had announced plans to collaborate with international partners to zero in on the backlog of children who require cardiac surgeries in Guyana.

Last year alone, 18 such surgeries were done with the assistance of international specialised help and according to the Head of State two months ago, the Government is in the advanced stages of planning another 150-plus cardiac operations for children in Guyana within the next year and a half.
In 2023, paediatric cardiac surgery was established as a regular programme at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) with some 12 children benefiting from open-heart surgeries.
These efforts are expected to be bolstered when the $32 billion (€149 million) Guyana Paediatric and Maternal Hospital that is being constructed at Ogle, East Coast Demerara (ECD), is completed in the last quarter of 2025.
The facility, financed by the United Kingdom’s export credit agency – UK Export Finance (UKEF), is being built by Austria-based Vamed Engineering. It will feature 256 beds and will be a referral centre for women and children.
It will specialise in maternal, neonatal, and paediatric care with a huge imaging suite for services such as CT scans and MRIs, a modern laboratory, and surgical suites.
Throughout last year, the GPHC fielded a total of 17 surgical missions and was able to reduce the backlog for specialised surgeries by 12,495. A total of 876 elective surgeries were executed, 587 minor surgeries, 845 emergency surgeries and 56 surgeries for hernias. Procedures included complex spine, vaginal, skin, neurological, ligament reconstruction and joint replacement surgeries.
At the GPHC end-of-year press conference in December 2023, Head of General Surgery, Dr Shilindra Rajkumar explained that while the Hospital recorded an increase in surgeries, many procedures were avoided this year following the procurement of gold-standard machinery for the department. This resulted in many neurological procedures being conducted swiftly without the need to open the skull or spine of patients.
Dr Rajkumar noted that these provisions have reduced the waiting time for surgeries across the board with most procedures now being done within seven days instead of 37 days. Notably, diagnosis capabilities also improved following the employment of skilled pathologists, radiologists, lab technicians and trauma response physicians, among others.
Meanwhile, at Friday’s meeting, President Ali said the investments that the Government was making in the GPHC would see the institution getting state-of-the-art forensic, biochemistry, and pathology laboratories.
Additionally, he noted that efforts were being undertaken to advance the level and type of surgeries being done here as well as the type of equipment being procured for use in the local health sector.
These investments by the State, according to the Guyanese Leader, have to be integrated into the investments being made by the local Private Sector in healthcare delivery.
Back in April 2023, President Ali announced a programme that saw the Government paying private hospitals to conduct echocardiogram and ultrasound tests, as there was a backlog in the public health sector.
Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 2000 persons were on the wait list for ultrasounds and another 3000 were waiting for echocardiograms. (G8)