THE continuing emphasis on health sciences education in the sector is to meet the changing needs of Guyanese, according to Mr. Noel Holder, Director of the Health Sciences Education Department, Ministry of Health.

In invited comments, he explained that it is vital, considering global changes in the context of developments, as well as emerging public health threats.

“We, at Health Sciences Education, deliver the majority of the training programmes for the Health Ministry and each builds capacity,” Holder told the Guyana Chronicle.

He said a total of 13 programmes are coordinated by his division and they include for laboratory technicians, audiologists, nursing, pharmacy and rehabilitation assistants, medexes, community health workers and professional nurses.

Holder said the nursing programme is the biggest, in which 500 persons are expected to be trained in 2010, through recently revised curricula presently up to Caribbean standards.

Meanwhile, Director of Regional Health Services (RHS), Dr Narine Singh, agreed that enhanced capacity, relative to the human resource factor, will, ultimately, translate into expansion of services and delivery of quality health care.

He said, for this year, several initiatives are underway to bolster efforts in the Health Sciences Education Division (HSED).

“We are training our young doctors to take on the responsibility for HIV treatment and care clinics. Previously, what happened was that we had volunteers come in and run these sites. We are working with the National Aids Programme Secretariat (NAPS) to develop capacity in the regions,” Singh explained.

He said this strategy targets Suddie, Charity, Bartica, Linden, New Amsterdam and Skeldon hospitals.

“Right now, we are dependent of volunteers from Francis Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) International as well as the United Nations,” Singh stated.

However, he said this will change soon, as the avenue for continuous professional development is being advanced.

Singh added that medexes, countrywide, are also being exposed to continuous medical education (CME), something that was never really done before and, along with them, the Cuba-trained Guyanese doctors will be targeted.

He said all doctors will get the exposure and the tuberculosis (TB) programme, as well as the HIV and Mental Health programmes are included in the training for young doctors, for them to be familiar with the routine services and be better able to deliver health care to people.

Singh said, too, that, through the Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid (VIA) screening tests for cervical cancer, once a doctor passes through the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, the individual will be trained to do the testing.

VIA is being advanced across the regions to assist women in detecting and treating cervical cancer in the early stages.