THE shortage of health personnel at facilities in outlying areas has been a worry, but Minister within the Ministry of Public Health Dr Karen Cummings has said that focus is being placed on capacity-building to address this problem.She pointed out that the ministry has been training persons in these communities to fill the void while residents who were trained in Cuba are required to serve their communities on their return.
“We offer post-graduate training so when they go back there, they can operate on their own and function as a consultant with the added knowledge. So we are working on that in terms of post-graduate training and of course we want to raise salaries of these professionals so that they can be recognised and be rewarded for their efforts,” Dr Cummings told the Guyana Chronicle.
The shortage of health professionals in the remote regions had been one of the issues raised by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) when it was in the Opposition.
Now in government with coalition partner, the Alliance For Change (AFC), Dr Cummings said the vision of the Administration is an ambitious one.
It is to make all the people in Guyana among the healthiest in the Caribbean and Latin America by the year 2020.
According to the minister, the ministry is on a mission to ensure the nation is physically, mentally and socially healthy.
“We want to ensure our health services are accessible, affordable, delivery is timely and to get our health personnel to be of such a quality, in terms of training and management that they will deliver quality health care to the populace. So we want Guyana to be like the Mecca for quality care in the Caribbean,” Dr Cummings told this publication.
SMALL BONDS
On a different matter, the minister had previously said that small bonds will be built in every region, and a computerised tracking system will be implemented to reduce the problem of far-flung regions not having access to a basic supply of drugs.
She noted that that the ministry is disturbed by the current system, but is moving swiftly to correct it.
“We have been working with [the] Supply Chain Management System (SCMS), at Diamond, where they have changed their system, whereby they are going to have each region have a semi-bond or small bond,” Dr Cummings said.

TRACKING DRUG AVAILABILITY
She added: “So, when your stock level reaches a critical level, a flag would be raised and drugs would be going there, rather than waiting for us to come all the way from Georgetown.”
The tracking of drug availability in all the regions, she said, will be done electronically.
“In times past,” Dr Cummings said, “drugs did not reach the outlying regions because they were not delivered, although monies were paid in advance. I have visited the Diamond bond, and they have a highly technological system. We are trying to improve our health information system, so I can stay from here and look at Region 9 and see what drugs they have and don’t have. We are getting there, so, right now we are working to have the SCMS to ensure that when drugs are short, they can report directly to master control, so that there would not be a case where the regions would be out of stock for long.”
The issue of shortage of drugs in outlying areas has been a matter that is also close to Minister Cummings. In her first speech in the National Assembly in April last year, she had lamented that a basic drug like Panadol was not available at some health centres.

By Tajeram Mohabir