Health centres in Region 6 to become more patient-friendly – Anthony

All 28 health centres in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) were upgraded last year, and further upgrades are planned for 2022. In the Region with the second-highest number of health centres in the country, many of the facilities were not patient-friendly. This has drastically changed, and the attention is now on transforming some to provide specialised services.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has said efforts are being made to improve the sector at every level.
As it relates to health centres in the region, he explained that many of them did not have washroom facilities for waiting patients.
“You know, people have this habit, they want to be there from 6:00 o’clock. When they get here at 6:00 o’clock, most of the time there was nowhere to sit. Very often, too, you had simple things like somebody waiting there wasn’t any washroom available if they need to go to the bathroom. Those little things that can make a big difference. At every health centre now, those concerns have been addressed,” the Minister pointed out while opening a new facility at the New Amsterdam Hospital on Saturday.
Over $7 million was spent last year on health centres, which have now all become more patient-friendly.
According to Regional Chairman David Armogan, the aim is to improve primary health care. Armogan pointed out that health centres in the region should be the ‘go-to’ facility when residents need medical services.
Currently, citizens think of private pharmacies as the ‘go-to’ medical facility, since health centres do not provide the variety of medication available at those facilities.
All this is changing, and apart from having permanent doctors and medical supplies which are needed to treat patients, medication will be available at the health centres.
“When we took over the Government in August of 2020, many of the things were bad, and so when we came in, nobody looked back, everybody was looking forward, and so we were blamed, sometimes not fairly, sometimes not necessarily, for some of the things that we had to inherit; and so, incrementally, we are doing almost on a daily basis some kind of intervention to make sure that we are improving and offering a better quality of service to the people of our region,” the Chairman explained.
He was also speaking at the commissioning ceremony on Saturday. Referring to health, Armogan said it is one of the main concerns of every living person.
“We have seen, over the years, many people migrate out of Guyana strictly on the basis of health reasons they go and live permanently abroad, because those services that they need to keep them alive are not available in Guyana. And so our Government is working every day to make sure that we can up a standard so that people do not have to leave this country in search of health facilities that are not available.”
Meanwhile, midwife of the Port Mourant Health Centre, Patricia Tyndall, told this publication that that centre was having large numbers of patients on a daily basis and there was no waiting area outside of the building, hence there was difficulty attending to all of the patients in a way which was in keeping with COVID-19 guidelines.
As such a waiting area has been constructed outside of the building, which allows a free flow of air.
“We also had some persons in the community who build a washroom outside for COVID-19 patients,” the midwife told this publication.
However, Anthony noted that the focus is not only on health centres, but other medical facilities in the Region. (G4)