— new centre for VIA and HIV/AIDS testing
THE Guyana Medical Relief Inc., that charitable organisation comprising Guyanese living in America, last Thursday, handed over a newly constructed $5M building to the Bartica Hospital complex in Region 7 (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) as an annexe for use in providing health care services. The single-flat, concrete, 29-foot by 23-foot building was built by the GMR Inc. in the compound of the hospital, and was handed over to hospital management to facilitate visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) testing of females for cervical cancer, and for voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) for HIV/AIDS.
The hospital will provide the equipment and staff required for the annexe; the role of the GMR Inc. was to provide “a home” for the services.
Handing over of the building was done by Chief Operating Officer of the GMR Inc., Mr Sharir Chan.
Regional Health Officer for Region 7, Ms. Merlene Ferrier, accepted the keys to the building on behalf of Region 7 in the presence of Regional Executive Officer (REO) Peter Ramotar; Deputy Regional Executive Officer (DREO) Deryck Persaud; and senior hospital staffers Sister Cecelia Austin and Nurse Sonia Burnette. Ms Ferrier also expressed the hospital’s appreciation for the donation made by the GMR Inc.
In brief remarks, Mr. Sharir Chan said that construction and subsequent donation of the building to the regional health care system was part of a more than two decades-long provision of assistance to the institution by GMR Inc.
The GMR Inc. has been donating to the Bartica Hospital since the 1980s.
Chan disclosed that support in the past has been mainly in the form of medicines and medications.
The new building comprises two rooms, a waiting area and sanitary facilities. This donation by the GMR Inc. was the first to satisfy the infrastructural needs of the Bartica Hospital to house two important elements of its services to the public.
Chan disclosed that the overseas-based Guyanese assisting the work of the GMR Inc. are organised according to the areas where they lived prior to migrating. He credited the successful completion of this new annexe at the Bartica Hospital to the hard work of the Bartica Committee of the GMR Inc., headed by former Bartica residents Mr. and Mrs. Herbie Glasgow.
Guyana Medical Relief (G.M.R.) Inc., based in Los Angeles, California, was formed by a small group of concerned Guyanese in 1984 to provide sponsorship for urgently needed medical supplies and equipment to Guyana, for use by both public and private hospitals.
The GMR Inc. collaborates with Direct Relief International (D.R.I.), a California-based agency with more than 57 years of experience in providing worldwide medical assistance.
Over the past 27 years of its existence, the GMR Inc. has moved from being an organisation which supplies medicines and medications to Guyanese health services to one supplementing the infrastructural needs of those institutions.