Region 2 dental department crippled by lack of essential supplies

Residents of Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) are left to bear the heavy cost, paying privately-owned dental offices for services like tooth extractions as the dental department in the region is out of needles.

Speaking with Guyana Times, Bob Mahadeo, a resident of Charity Housing Scheme said that his daughter, a student of the Charity Primary School, was turned away from the Oscar Joseph District Hospital Dental Department because of lack of dental needles to do the extraction.

Several other residents reached out to this publication regarding the same issue.
A check found that all of the Government dental clinics in the region haven’t had any dental needles for over two weeks now.
When contacted, acting Regional Chairman, Nandranie Coonjah said that she was on sick leave and only returned to the job on Tuesday but noted that the region’s health department is in what she described as “a total mess”.

She said that the Chairman on the RDC Health Committee, Councillor Arnold Adams informed her of the health situation in the region. When contacted, Councillor Arnold Adams said that for over two weeks, patients have been turned away from all Government dental clinics in the region due to the lack of dental needles. He added also that the biochemistry machine at Suddie Public Hospital is once again out of order and patients who need that service have to travel to Georgetown. The biochemistry analysers are used to determine the concentrations of chemical substances in a biological process. It has its applications in the medical field in which it uses an enzyme, glucose oxidase, to break down the level of glucose in the blood.
The poor and needy and those who live in the riverine and interior locations, the councillor added, are the ones suffering the most. Those affected by teeth-related problems, including senior citizens and children, are left to bear the severe pain without any other medical aid, not even a pain killer, said one senior citizen.