GOVERNMENT, though his Ministry, has invested heavily in the Health Sector during 2012, the Minister, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran said Thursday.

Giving the media a year end review of the undertakings, in his ministry’s boardroom, at Brickdam, Georgetown, he said they include major upgrades of hospitals and other facilities, as well as improvement in the training of care providers, including doctors overseas.
Ramsaran said the investments in human resources and infrastructure, when brought together, will give the ministry a platform for projection into the future.
He said, over the past few years, the ministry has built and equipped ten new hospitals in places such as Diamond, East Bank Demerara; Suddie, Essequibo Coast; Port Mourant, Corentyne, Berbice; Mabaruma, North West District and Lethem, Rupununi.
Besides, those, the ministry has also built and will continue to build, health centres, he stated.
The minister added that massive investing has also been done and, in the latter part of last year in the West Demerara Regional Hospital and the Diamond Hospital, which have all positioned the Health Ministry to deliver more services to more people in more places.

Drastically increased
He also reported that the ministry has ensured its workforce is drastically increased.
According to him, the Ministry has trained a significantly greater number of nurses over the past several years and, this year, in particular, has seen a significant increase of them, as well as other medical personnel, like midwives, x-ray technicians and medexes graduating.
Ramsaran said there are, currently, close to 500 nurses in training at three nursing schools and the Health Ministry has successfully piloted the introduction of a second shift of classes for nurses at the Georgetown School of Nursing.
He said this means that the ministry would be using its resources more effectively, the classrooms would be smaller and persons can now do their clinical work during the day and execute teaching functions in the evenings.
The Minister said students’ access to the Resource Centre would also be improved, because the ministry intends to expand it.
He disclosed that, with the help of Cuba, his ministry has been able to train a large group of graduate doctors and a little less than 200 have returned to Guyana and are in their various stages of preparation for dispersal or deployment in the Guyanese system.
Ramsaran revealed that the deployment has already commenced, allowing the ministry to put the graduate doctors in places where, in some cases, only a medex functioned.
He said there are, currently, in Cuba, approximately 200 doctors in their final stages of preparation and they would be coming home over a period of time to add to the number in the system.
Ramsaran said that government has invested heavily in those young people and they are expected to serve a minimum of five years after they would have graduated and returned home.
He recalled that, in February 2006, then President Bharrat Jagdeo led a small delegation to Cuba and President Castro created a faculty of medicine for Guyanese students only, where 500 students started to be trained.
Ramsaran informed that the Guyana/Cuba relationship celebrated its 40th anniversary and he represented Guyana in Cuba, recently, when the contribution of Cuba, not only to Guyana and the Guyanese health sector, but also to the development of healthcare in Latin America and the Caribbean, was highlighted.

Main components
The minister stressed that one of the main components of the relations between the two countries is health.
He said the bilateral relationship has grown significantly over the years and representatives from Guyana have visited Cuba to thank the Cuban Government, which is already prepared to expand the ties even further.
Ramsaran observed that Guyana now has doctors practically in every small hospital and even at health centres where none functioned previously, like in places such as Leguan and Wakenaam, Essequibo Islands.
He said those doctors are not stagnated in their professional development, as the ministry has introduced post-graduate programmes in fields such as general and orthopaedic surgery, emergency medicine and paediatrics.
The minister said, with the influx of hundreds of Cuban-trained Guyanese graduate doctors, the ministry now has a big resource pool of more trained medical practitioners.
He informed, too, that, the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Post-Graduate Training Programme started earlier this year and there is nothing stopping the start-up of smaller such programmes in the country, inducting graduates from the University of Guyana (UG) and other institutions.
Ramsaran said starting those post-graduate courses is a work in progress and he is very hopeful that the ministry would, shortly, be seeing some organised form of starting them.
He said the process is competitive, because not every Cuban-trained doctor automatically goes on a post-graduate programme. They are selected based on the quality of their service.
The Minister said, although Guyanese graduates have, generally, performed well when they return to serve, some have, inevitably, disappointed and he apologised to the public for that weakness.
However, the Ministry is putting in place systems to ensure that Guyanese doctors and nurses report to work on time, deliver as expected and conduct themselves politely.