The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on Saturday received medical equipment to the tune of US$125, 000 from Northwell Health, New York to boost its operations.
Northwell Health is a non-profit integrated healthcare network, and is New York’s largest healthcare provider and private employer.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony said the much-needed equipment would be used in the pathology department and would allow for better services and timely diagnosis of illnesses.
“I can assure you we’ll make sure that it’s put to good use, the microscopes that we spoke about earlier –that’s a very needed piece of equipment, because a lot of times when specimens go to the pathology department, they are not able to process these things as quickly as possible,” he said.
“And our cancer registry which we have developed some time ago, many times the classification of these specimens are not done properly, so this is going to change the way that we make this diagnosis,” the Minister said.
Director of Global Health- Northwell Health, Dr Eric Cioe-Pena handing over the equipment to Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony
Dr Anthony also reiterated President Dr Irfaan Ali’s vision of having a world-class healthcare system. He said it was, therefore, important “in this new era of health sector development” to also have world-class partnerships.
The Minister noted that Guyana’s partnership with Northwell Health was a “two-way relationship” as Guyana could benefit from the services provided by Northwell Health, and that organisation could benefit from the commendable primary healthcare system here in Guyana.
Director of Global Health at Northwell Health, Dr Eric Cioe-Pena during the handing-over ceremony said he was hopeful that Northwell Health could set the standard for a good partnership in Guyana.
“I’m very excited that this is the first supply shipment that we’re able to help GPHC coordinate, that will help to boost service… We hope that we set a standard for partnership in Guyana for 2022, that this is the level we expect partners to act with – the level of respect, mutual exchange of information and support,” Dr Cioe-Pena said.
Meanwhile, Ministerial Advisor, Dr Leslie Ramsammy said building partnerships with international entities was the fastest way of improving the local health sector.
Also attending the simple ceremony were acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GPHC, Robbie Rambarran; Consultant of the Pathology Department at GPHC, Dr Nancy Sitchao and other officials of GPHC and Northwell Health.
