GOVERNMENT has, through the Region 2 Administration, commissioned a brand new $9.1M health centre at Yarashima in the Wakapao community to boost delivery of health care to the mainly Amerindian residents.Region 2 Vice-Chairman Mr Vishnu Samaroo, who on Sunday commissioned the project on behalf of Government, told a large crowd that the new health centre is another testimony of the PPP/C administration’s commitment to deliver quality health care to Amerindians.

He said that Government’s policy since in the 1964 era was to introduce health services to Amerindian communities where no such service existed. The Vice-Chairman said the PPP Government had also set up health posts in the interior areas, and equipped those posts to provide services to residents, especially in the fight against malaria during the early sixties.

Mr Samaroo said the services started by the PPP Government were discontinued under the PNC regime between 1964 and 1992. He said the communities in the hinterland suffered because of non-existent or poor health services.

According to Samaroo, after the PPP/C won the elections in 1992, the Government then began focusing again on providing quality health and social services to Guyanese. He said some 30% of the national budget was allocated to health.

Mr Samaroo said that, in Region 2, the Government, over the years, constructed several health centres and health posts, and rehabilitated existing ones across the length and breadth of the region to provide free quality health services to residents.

Mr Samaroo said the Yarashima Health Centre is one such example. The building was constructed by Boodraj Contractor and Supplies through the Region 2 Administration’s capital works programme for 2014.

The older folks in the community who attended the commissioning ceremony said they remember that it was the PPP Government, during the 1953-1964 period, that had introduced such health services under the stewardship of the late Mrs Janet Jagan, who was the then Minister of Health. The senior residents said they are very happy that the PPP/C Government can again provide and expand health services across the country, in which every Guyanese can benefit.

Vice-Chairman Samaroo also told residents that the PPP/C Government was responsible for bringing Amerindians into the mainstream of Guyanese life. He said many Amerindians are now nurses, doctors, teachers, soldiers, police officers, agronomists, agriculture officers, public servants, and are engaged in other areas of work.

Mr Samaroo said a large number of Amerindian youths were among the 900 doctors that were sent to study in Cuba. He said they studied and qualified themselves as doctors, engineers, technicians and agronomists. (Rajendra Prabhulall)