Rohee flays Govt over delayed placement of Cuba-trained doctors

People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Clement Rohee is concerned that the medical sector is being neglected by the current administration in wake of its silence against attacks on Cuban-trained practitioners by controversial columnist Freddie Kissoon and the delay in the placement of 92 trained Guyanese doctors who have been waiting since last year for their post to the public service.
Rohee said the situation is unpleasant and reflects the incompetence of the coalition Administration in the management of the country.

Regarding the attacks on the Cuban-trained doctors, the General Secretary has condemned the Government for not stepping up to the practitioners’ defence.
“The silence by the Granger Administration on this matter, and worse yet, its failure to support the young professionals and to condemn the Kaieteur News for this travesty is merely further evidence of the uncaring nature of the regime,” he stated.
Rohee added that “Kissoon and the Kaieteur News have no doubt taken a cue from the APNU/AFC coalition Administration who has demonstrated a noticeable level of disdain for Cuban scholarship returnees, whether in the field of medicine or other disciplines.”
In the column, titled “Guyanese messengers of death from Cuba have returned”, Kissoon wrote – among several other things – that “many of the Cuban-trained Guyanese doctors are hopelessly incompetent. They have killed countless of poor patients at the Georgetown Public Hospital, (the middle classes and wealthy folks do not even drive past the Georgetown Public Hospital, do not even visit it, much less to become patients there), the West Demerara Hospital, New Amsterdam Hospital among others.”
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has already denounced the columnist’s attacks and called on him to issue an immediate apology.
Moreover, on the matter of the placement of the Guyanese doctors, Rohee posited that the onus is on government to ensure their welfare is protected.
The Guyana Medical Council (GMC), since last November, has not initiated the process of registering and dispatching these doctors to the public service, as per their contract with the government.
“In spite of a contractual agreement which binds the Cuban-trained doctors to five years of public service, and in light of the prevailing shortages of medical staff countrywide, some 92 trained doctors are still awaiting placement, having graduated and completed their compulsory one-year internship,” Rohee expressed.
He said the doctors have been complaining that they were being pushed around by the Public Health Ministry and that they have received vague responses to their queries as regards registration and placement.
Rohee made it clear that though it is the duty of the Guyana Medical Council to spearhead their placement, it is the responsibility of the Government to ensure the process is facilitated.
“It is the Government, it is for them, I am not suggesting that the Government must go and interfere and direct the Medical Council or give instructions to the Medical Council… I said that the government must take the initiative to seek to advance the interests of the medical doctors… because who will they turn to, they have to turn to the subject Ministry,” he emphasised.
The General Secretary explained that whatever method the ministry takes, it must obviously be in keeping with existing protocols.