– Minister Ramsaran
MINISTER within the Ministry of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran said, last week, that the improvements at the Dr. C.C. Nicholson Memorial Hospital, on East Coast Demerara, is a proud example of the several achievements in the sector over the past year. In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, at his Brickdam, Georgetown office, he noted that the hospital is not new.
“The Ministry did not establish it but, when we inherited it, it was in a poor condition, a glorified health centre with minimum staff,” Ramsaran said, observing that it was referred to as a hospital very few people visited or utilised its services, except for maternal and child care services.
According to him: “It was only a hospital in name. Nobody was kept there and there was not a doctor attached for many years.”
He said the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration changed the situation, especially after the 2006 three-day to Cuba, by President Bharat Jagdeo and a small delegation.
Ramsaran said: “Things started to turn around, significantly, at the hospital. One of the achievements after the visit to Cuba was the addition of 20 more family practitioners and one of the institutions identified to benefit was Dr. C.C. Nicholson Hospital.”
The Minister continued: “As a matter of fact, under the expanded cooperation, which started in 2006, two Cuban family practitioners were stationed at the hospital and just prior to that, a midwife/medex had been transferred to the facility.”

MORE IMPROVEMENTS
Ramsaran said, during 2010, there have been more improvements, in the form of infrastructural upgrades, which have consolidated what was done in previous years to reform the hospital, from a glorified run-down health centre to the level of a self-respecting, rural hospital.
He indicated, too, that there are still existing weaknesses at the hospital that need to be strengthened, despite the fact that the situation there is many times better than in the recent past.
Ramsaran announced that two new Guyanese doctors, Dr. David Nelson and Dr. Ameeka Breedy, recent graduates of the Cuban training programme, have been dispatched to the hospital and are occupying the newly renovated doctors’ quarters.
“The doctors now have comfortable living conditions and Dr. Breedy, who heads the hospital also lives there,” he disclosed.
Alluding to the advantages of the permanent placement of the two doctors, Ramsaran said Dr. Nelson, who resides in the hospital compound, as well, is the first ever doctor assigned to Buxton Health Centre, located fifteen minutes travelling distance away.
“He is now attached permanently to the Buxton Health Centre, which means that, for the first time ever, since it was created, it has its own resident doctor, who is also advised to conduct outreach activities in the community,” the Minister said.
Ramsaran mentioned that Dr. C.C. Nicholson Hospital also has a medex attached there and that has been one of the main achievements of the Administration in recent years at that medical institution.
“The continued and sustained provision of midwifery and obstetrics services was done in direct response to the cultural norms of that community and at the specific request of its members,” Ramsaran said.
He said expectant mothers in the area, as part of tradition, like to birth at home or in the community. So the Ministry decided, after a review of the situation, that this needs to be discontinued as it is a practice fraught with danger.

STANDARDS REQUIRED
Added to this, Ramsaran said, some of the health centres are not maintaining the high standards required for deliveries to be done there.
“Previously this was allowed but we have banned that now because of certain substandard practices. We want sterility, comfort of the patients and cleanliness in the centres. Sometimes, this is below the acceptable,” he said.
In that context, Ramsaran emphasised that the birthing activities at the Dr. C.C. Nicholson Hospital has seen a high number of positive outcomes, including no maternal deaths and few still births, over the past two years.
He attributed that to the good training and dedication of the medex/midwife stationed at the institution on a 24-hour basis.
Ramsaran related:”During this period, when we have had a spike in maternal deaths, this is an achievement and we are showing, here, that the Ministry of Health has provided this community and several other villages, on East Coast Demerara, with a functional health facility.
“This is quiet, unannounced, unrecognised achievement of the PPP/C Administration, of which we are proud.”