Management of health sector being changed – Dr Ramsammy

The management of the health sector in Guyana is being transformed. This is according to Advisor to the Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy.

Ramsammy, who has served as Health Minister, was at the time speaking at the launch of a nine-month pharmacy assistant training programme in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) on Saturday. He said that in addition to changes being made to the way the health sector is managed, the way persons are trained and educated is also being changed.
“Not changing it by having more people, not changing it by introducing new courses but our educators and trainers are adopting new habits and new ways of training. No longer will we depend on having a classroom and people coming into a classroom to attend classes. We are introducing online training. For the first time the New Amsterdam Nursing School might deliver training to nurses in Region One online. We are removing the barrios to training,” he explained.
Speaking of training, the former Health Minister said the approach to training in the health sector has been by finding ways to limit people’s ambition and desire, “For too long in our training programme our approach was to tell people that they cannot be part of the programme.”
He noted that thousands of young persons would have applied to become nursing assistants, registered nurses, pharmacy assistants and because of the eligibility requirement, many of them could not be part of training programmes despite their ambitions.
He pointed out that the Government of Guyana is taking a different approach as it relates to training.
“That approach is that we will make it possible for those who have the passion and desire and the ambition. No longer must we look at people and say, ‘you can’t be a part of this programme’.”
So far for the year, 9000 persons have been afforded the opportunity to be a part of the GOAL Scholarship programme.
Dr Ramsammy also noted that this year the School of Medicine of the University of Guyana (UG) had set a limit to the number of candidates they were going to accept into their medical programme to forty.
“They said that is all that they can accommodate. We told them to make it seventy. So, for the first time the UG freshman class for medicine will be seventy-six. What it means is that we are not limiting the potential of this sector,” Dr Ramsammy said.
In one year’s time, some three hundred persons are expected to graduate as pharmacy assistants in Guyana, Ramsammy noted, while adding that this year will see the largest number of persons joining the nursing assistant class in Guyana. The same will be for the registered nursing programme.
“For the first time in this country’s history, we launched a Masters the hospital and health sector leadership programme with York University last week. In nine months’ time, twenty-five young Guyanese professionals will graduate with their Master’s degree in hospital administration from one of the leading hospital administration training universities in the world.”
Next week Dr Ramsammy said there will be another first in Guyana’s history in that the bi-medical technician course will commence.
He noted that on many occasions X-ray machines are down for weeks and surgeries are postponed because the anaesthetic machine is down.
“We don’t have anybody in-house to repair our medical equipment; we have to wait weeks and months for someone to come to our country.”
The bi-medical technicians, he said, would be capable of fixing such equipment.
“So that our hospitals would have in-house capacity for real-time maintenance of equipment and repair of equipment,” Ramsammy explained. (G4)