US$4.576M Medical Sciences College opens on UG’s Turkeyen campus

…Govt urges UG to double annual intake of med students

Just over a year after the sod-turning ceremony, the University of Guyana (UG) in partnership with the Government of Guyana, officially opened the highly anticipated College of Medical Sciences on its Turkeyen campus, East Coast of Demerara (ECD) on Tuesday.
Spanning two floors, the concrete building sports a 200-seat theatre, fully-furnished labs, classrooms, anatomy rooms and research facilities. The facility was constructed by Shandong Highspeed Dejian Group Company Ltd and the sod was turned in November 2023. However, the facility has actually been in the works since under the previous People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration in 2013.
President Dr Irfaan Ali, who was the feature speaker on Tuesday, drew attention to the fact that it took the PPP/C’s return to office in 2020 after A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) finally left office, to get the ball rolling once again on building this much needed facility.
“When we look at this project cycle, you can determine for yourself what category of performance can be ascribed to the project portfolio pipeline. The project was conceptualised in 2013. A lot of work was done in 2013. The project was more or less ready, by the time we went into the new Government,” President Ali said.

“It took us until 2017 to have the project loan agreement signed. When I assumed office, I asked all the Ministers to do a review of everything within their portfolios, within the pipeline. And everything that we would have left in 2015.”
According to the Head of State, when Education Minister, Priya Manickchand informed him that construction had still not started on the College of Medical Sciences, he was left astonished. This is despite the fact that the project was being partially funded by the World Bank.
“I was like, you gotta be kidding me. This building is not started as yet? Unfortunately, we were in the period of COVID at the same time. And many countries were negotiating with the world bank. The reassignment of resources to COVID programmes.”
“We were one of the only countries, and the World Bank and IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) would tell you this. Who kept our portfolio intact, while at the same time investing in COVID and developing one of the best COVID response systems here regionally and internationally.”

President Ali highlighted that through this approach, the Government was able to keep the project on track by rescheduling the implementation timeline. He further emphasised that negotiations were accelerated, resulting in the project’s signing and subsequent completion. Additionally, with the Government’s abolition of tuition fees at UG, each medical student now receives $6 million worth of tuition-free education. According to the President, there will be no compromise in delivering this $13.1 billion worth of education to UG students.
“We are not cutting costs or corners to deliver that free education. We want to prepare and produce students who are world-class in every field… so that our students will be globally competitive… This is about a huge vision. This is about understanding where we want the country to be positioned, not only to deliver excellent health care to patients but to be part of the research,” President Ali pointed out.
In her remarks at the opening of the facility, UG’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Paloma Mohammed remarked on how the University’s present intake of medical students has been hampered by not having this building.

She had noted that with applications now open as of April 2, 2025, it means that they are no longer as constrained as before in accepting medical students and could take in 65 students. Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony, cognisant of the dramatic increase in demand for health care professionals in Guyana, went on to urge UG to look into doubling their intake of medical students.
“This year, we would be opening six new hospitals in this country. That has never been done at any time in our history. And those hospitals, one is going to be at Lima on the Essequibo Coast, one at De Kinderen in Region Three. Another one at Diamond here in Region Four, another one at Enmore on the East Coast. One at Bath in Region Five. And one at Number 75. And for each of these hospitals, we will now have 75 beds.”
“So, beds should no longer be a problem and that should no longer be a constraining factor in terms of the number of students that we recruit to our programme. And I believe if we’re at 65 now, we can double that. We can get more than 120, because we need the medical workforce to power what we want to do in healthcare,” Dr Anthony further said.
In addition to the previously mentioned features, the Medical Sciences College includes eight classrooms, a microbiology laboratory with a wet prep room, a haematology/biochemistry lab, a dedicated haematology laboratory, as well as research and skills labs.