THE return of new Cuban trained Guyanese will bolster the Health Ministry’s decentralisation and the sector would be able to do more with its enhanced capacity, Director of Regional Health Services (RHS), Dr. Narine Singh said.

“Previously, we were bounded by various constraints but, with the influx, we will achieve this goal much faster,” he told the Guyana Chronicle.

He said the process of decentralising has begun in some areas where doctors have been assigned to take over from medexes.

“By placing doctors in areas where there were none before, we reduce the burden on the major centres and are able to have trained personnel oversee the expansion of different services,” Singh explained.

According to him, some of the services already being expanded include, tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS treatment and care, malaria, chronic diseases and mental health.

“These are all services that were run centrally at the Ministry but greater human resource capacity will take off the burden from the central Ministry and also increase access for people,” Singh said.

He said, in 2010, each Administrative Region will be enforcing a service agreement with the Health Ministry and it would see every district committing to the delivery of a health care package.

“Each region will be held accountable for the delivery of the agreed services. We will be providing the resources, based on the targets we agree, such as 98 per cent immunisation and the Regional Health Departments and the Regional Health Officers (RHOs) will have to deliver,” Singh stated.

He said the service agreement policy is an expansion of a similar arrangement that the Ministry is continuing with Region Six (East Berbice/ Corentyne) through the Regional Health Authority (RHA), which was established in December 2005 and is responsible for the provision, delivery and administration of health services available in that Region, at 22 clinics.

ULTIMATE AIM
Singh said monitoring and evaluation will be a quintessential element and would be pursued, because the ultimate aim is improved quality delivery to the Guyanese populace.

“Along with the increased focus on supervision, we will also look at training of personnel to maintain quality,” he added.

He said regular inspections will be done at the facilities and strict emphasis put on standards in areas to be addressed, including safety and waste management.

Singh said, although, to date, no health care facility has been closed for lack of compliance to standards, it will be the resulting action if any divergence is found.

He said the diagnostic centres at Leonora, Mahaicony, Diamond and Suddie, are taking on a major role with regards to the decentralisation.

Consequently, they are now equipped with surgical capacity and have more technical staff to deal with things like ultra-sound, laboratory tests and x-rays, Singh said.

He acknowledged that there will be challenges but expressed the view that, with efforts to strengthen it, the system will change over time.