SOME Guyanese who have returned home after being trained as doctors in Cuba are to be deployed around the country.

They will then serve five years at their respective posts before accessing further training for upward mobility.
This was stated during a recent briefing Minister of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Shamdeo Persaud and other officials, held with the graduate batch.
Ramsaran said Cuba graduates doctors who are committed, patriotic and want to serve.
“We want to welcome you and tell you that your predecessors have done well,” he told them, indicating that the Health Sector would willingly help them during their five years of service.
The minister also disclosed that Cuba has offered four other scholarships in the key areas of Psychiatry, Pathology, Gynaecology/Obstetrics and Orthopaedics.
The rigours
He informed the group: “Four of you will be going but you have to pass through the rigours of the competition.”
The minister emphasised that they are expected to serve before “the opportunities open to upward mobility”.
The CMO noted that they are at another phase of their lives and the aid from Cuba, in training a stronger cadre of medical doctors, would impact greatly on better health for all Guyanese.
He remarked that the support Guyana has gotten from Cuba, in health services particularly, along with building a stronger team of medical doctors, will impact on delivering better health services in the country.
“We’re about to launch a new strategy, a new health strategy that will focus a lot on not only treating people who are ill, but to also address some of the social determinants of health,” Persaud explained.
He said there is a greater need for specialists and there have been discussions, between the Health Ministry and the Cubans, to have specialised programmes in Guyana, so that everyone will have an equal opportunity to benefit from these and build their own careers.
Institutional category
“The licence that you will be granted, as soon as your documents are prepared and submitted to the Ministry of Health, from the Public Service Ministry, would guarantee you an institutional category of registration. That requires some level of supervision and some rotation,” Persaud pointed out.
Hundreds of Cuban trained Guyanese doctors have come back home, over the years, to provide personnel for the many new health institutions built by the Government of Guyana.
Cuba has, in the past, been assisting Guyana by sending doctors, nurses and technicians to help with health care delivery.