Mandatory COVID-19 testing for surgical patients being reviewed

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Thursday related that a technical committee was currently revising the requirement for surgical patients to test for COVID-19 before surgery is conducted.
The team is expected to make a decision on this by next week. This requirement for patients to undergo a PCR test pre-surgery was taken after the pandemic struck.

“We have a technical committee that has been working on this and by next week, we will announce new protocols because of the low number of cases that we’re seeing. If somebody requires surgery, the surgeons themselves when they are preparing, they are all in PPEs [Personal Protective Equipment], so this is just an additional requirement for them to know the status of the patient,” he related.
The Minister, however, indicated that this requirement prevented people from accessing surgeries when needed, and also contributed to delays.
The new protocols will curb such challenges in the health system. The new rules are to be announced by the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Narine Singh shortly.
“What we found sometimes is, it has become a barrier, preventing people from accessing surgery that has been planned, causing numerous delays and so forth. We think that we can change it to make it easier for these patients who require surgery to be able to access that surgery. The final recommendations are being worked on,” Dr Anthony explained.
With the changes in the pandemic, Guyana has been removing guidelines that were activated when COVID struck. Earlier this year, Government announced that numerous changes were made to the COVID-19 regulations, paving the way for several of the restrictions to be lifted.
A newly-gazetted order – Public Health (Coronavirus) (No 3) Regulations 2022 – stated that wearing a face mask was no longer mandatory, but is encouraged when in public; proof of vaccination is no longer required to enter public buildings, and the COVID-19 restrictions on social activities and gatherings were removed.
Later, the Guyana Government lifted the COVID-19 testing requirement for international travel.
Persons travelling to Guyana were required to present a negative COVID-19 test, either an antigen or PCR, that was taken within 72 hours of their arrival in the country.
Guyana first implemented a host of COVID-19 measures shortly after the first case of the virus was detected in the country on March 11, 2020; and over the past two years, those restrictions have been amended – strengthened as well as partially removed – in order to fit the reality of the pandemic in Guyana.