President Jagdeo demanding equity, accountability in health care
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has reiterated that there must be equity and accountability in the delivery of health care in this country.

He said so at the official commissioning of the new state-of-the-art $1.8 billion Linden Hospital Complex at Watooka, in Region Ten (Upper Demerara/Berbice) on Wednesday.

The facility was constructed with funding from the Health Sector Programme (HSP), a five-year US$25.5M scheme, co-financed by the Government of Guyana and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Underscoring the importance of it, he told the gathering, including Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy: “What you see here happening in Linden is just part of a comprehensive plan that we have for the development of our country and all of its sectors.”

Outlining some of the challenges in conceptualising the national plan and difficulties with its implementation, he alluded to the global recession and the effect on the regional front having a devastating toll on the economies of countries in CARICOM.

However, he pointed out that, in Guyana’s case, it has the largest public sector budget ever in its history this year, a trend which is expected to continue.

“It is largely because of this master plan that we have had, over the many years and have been diligently pursuing and that master plan, had and has, as its very first component, ensuring that the state of finances of our country can support national development,” President Jagdeo said.

He noted that the health sector budget has grown from $750M in 1992 to $12 billion today and the country is using just over 4 per cent of its revenue to service debt, as compared to 94 per cent when the Administration took office.

President Jagdeo said the Government has been able to pay back over US$1.5 billion and remarked: “That is the kind of thing that has created the fiscal space in our country to increase spending.”

The Head of State mentioned that spending in the health sector has grown from about US$7 to US$80 per capita today, representing a huge shift.
TREND
“This is not a phenomenal figure that anyone will be satisfied with – US$80 per capita – but if you look at the trend and that is important, you will see deep commitments there within…” he stated.

Other significant investments are being made to improve health care with the construction of new hospitals and other facilities over the past five to six years.

“In fact, five of them are constructed with funds coming from our budget. Local funds not from loans or grants from abroad. They were constructed with our own revenue – this is a major difference than in the past,” he emphasised.

However, he said: “We recognise, too, that the spending would be inadequate if we just build buildings and this is why we have a very ambitious programme for the staffing of these facilities.”

President Jagdeo said, between 2009 and 2012, in excess of 400 Guyanese doctors will be added to the public health system, as well as a number of nurses and medexes, who are currently being trained.

“We have listed some qualitative outputs that we want from the health sector. We have argued that our health delivery system and health care system, must, first of all, be people centred,” he added.

“When we had a retreat some years ago, we were very concerned that we kept increasing the quantum of financing to the sector. We were delivering better services but we didn’t have an accountable way of measuring those services and reporting back to people and we have insisted, at the level of the Cabinet, not now and not for next year, but three years ago, that every health institution in this country must account for its services,” the Head of State maintained.

“How they deploy the resources that we give them and how they are meeting some pre-agreed indicators of good quality service, service that would determine whether they are people centred, whether the right attitudes exist in these institutions and whether they are improving access to people,” he elaborated.

He expressed disappointment that such a system is still not in place, because it is absolutely necessary.

President Jagdeo said he made it clear that the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the health institutions must keep or lose their jobs, depending on how they perform in these areas.

Noting that Guyana has public health care that everyone could access, he said: “It may not be the best in the world but, at least, our people could access it and we want to grow it.

“We don’t have large sums of money, so it means that every cent that we spend matters and, therefore, we are going to be looking at these issues in a greater way,” the President indicated.

“We are solving the question of access through the building of more facilities and better facilities right across our country but it is not just quantitative access, it is also qualitative access and I want you to work with us in these areas,” he told officials.
BENEFITS
President Jagdeo said, already, the benefits of increased spending in the health sector are being seen with life expectancy rate going up, despite there was a major period of difficulties occasioned by the prevalence of HIV/AIDS which has abated now.

“Because of a very aggressive programme we have had in this area, which started from our Treasury. When we did not have international funding, we took our own money, one of the few countries in the world developed or developing, we took our own money and started providing anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs for people who were HIV positive,” he stated.

President Jagdeo declared that very few countries did that but international funding came subsequently and today, through this very aggressive programme, Guyana has turned the corner from the statistics that were seen.

“The epidemic is not over, so there is no room for complacency but we have turned that corner and our life expectancy rate is growing again,” he noted.

The President also reported that infant mortality rate has fallen and more than 95 per cent of the population has been vaccinated.

“These are very important qualitative indicators as to the spending in the health sector and we should all be proud of these and now we have to extend the campaign,” he said.

President Jagdeo said every person in Guyana must be aware and know about chronic, non-communicable diseases and he revealed that, at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), after a presentation by CARICOM, a special communiqué was issued with the intention of hosting a summit on these non-communicable diseases.

He said 61 per cent of the deaths in the Commonwealth and around the world are from complications such as hypertension and diabetes.

“Many times, people think this is for the Government or the hospitals to deal with. This is a lifestyle kind of disease. It needs more public education and I hope that the communities, themselves and everyone would get involved. That is the only way we will turn the corner in these areas,” he posited.