Dear Sir,
IN the not too distant past, I happened to read of multiple wrongs which continue to occur with regards to the functioning of the Medical Council of Guyana, in collusion with the chief medical officer (CMO) who happens to be an integral member of the very council. There were various letters of complaints from members of the wider public, who seem to have reflected the views of the practicing doctors, who for one reason or the other, were unable to directly give their views to the media because of the restrictions concerning doctors and the airing of grievances in the media to the wider public.
The council has been accused of being biased, ethnically and gender-wise imbalanced, politically-oriented, tardy in their decision making, and with a penchant for dealing in a high-handed manner with regards to junior doctors. The CMO has been accused of favouritism for particular members of the council, who it seem have had his great support thus, resulting in his defense of their every action or inaction with regards to the expected duties of council members.

In his defense, the CMO launched a scathing attack on whom he classified as “agitators” in an August 8th, 2018 article published in the Kaieteur News Daily, where he explained that some members of the medical fraternity wanted changes at the medical council for their own private agenda, which included the issuance of licenses to unworthy practitioners. He, also, went at great lengths to disapprove the theory that he favoured sitting members of the council to continue in their position for the next election cycle, and that he had no negative bias towards any other doctor. The CMO also heartily boasted that he had been in that position for over 10 years, and that he had overseen the functioning of the medical council and its election procedure without any complaints before, and so this was something new of him being accused of showing bias.

However, the CMO never addressed adequately the issue of why the nomination process for members of the council was rushed, with little time for all doctors registered to make their input. He never answered why insufficient media coverage was given to the nomination process, nor why the nominations made were not shown to the public (i.e. who nominated and seconded each candidate). He also ignored an entire list of possible candidates without giving them due notification of why they could not be selected, even though a letter penned to himself with the names of those nominated, who nominated them and those who seconded the nomination was provided, along with their registration numbers as in the 2018 Gazette of Practitioners, and a contact number for each and every person on the list. That letter clearly stated why it was nigh on impossible for those who were involved, to personally hand in their individual nomination list during the timeframe given. It requested that extension be granted or, if deemed necessary, to make contact. NO ONE was ever contacted by the CMO or his staff.

The CMO, therefore, clearly had an agenda and this agenda was challenged by not one but various letter writers, and proof of skullduggery will vindicate the accusations.
In the Oct 28th edition of the Kaieteur News, the CMO bravely released the results of the elections of new council members. They are as follows: Dr Frank Anthony 82 votes, Dr Mahendra Carpen 82 votes, Dr Bhiro Harry 80 votes, Dr Mercedes Palomares 45 votes, Dr Chris Prashad 79 votes, Dr Navin Rambarran 87 votes and Dr Marissa Seepersaud 72 votes. Given the fact that six members are selected from the votes, we can safely assume that all except Dr Mercedes Palomares will be elected. Of those six, five are returning members of the current board, with Dr Chris Prashad being the only new comer and Dr Ravi Motilall being the outgoing member. Five are currently staff members of the GPHC, with Dr Anthony being the exception. Of the five, three are from the same department (Surgery) at GPHC. No representative of any other region or health facility was elected. Take time to digest this fact! Was there no other person interested enough in bettering their region, or another health facility (be it public or private) worthy of consideration?
The CMO’s claim that he has been responsible for elections for the last 10 years leads to a simple question. Are the elections a true reflection of the wishes of the general medical fraternity or has the election process always been as tainted as the current version reflects? Doing the same thing for 10 years does not mean that one is correctly doing what should be done, and as a doctor, the CMO should be aware of this fact.

If one is the least bit interested, the current gazette for health care providers will show on record that there are approximately 1000 doctors (1080 to be exact) registered to practice medicine in Guyana, and thus eligible to vote in any council election. Of this number, 454 are junior doctors with institutional registration, some having this type of registration for more than three years (even though the Medical Practitioner’s Act clearly states that this is unlawful, and the CMO whether aware or ignorant of this fact has clearly not made it a priority to rectify the situation), and 626 have full registration (as of May22nd). This gazette, as demanded by the governing act, is supposed to be up to date for every year and available to all health care providers and the general public for inspection. What significance does this data show? It means that at the last election where each registered doctor has one vote, whereby he can select from the list of candidates a total of six worthy candidates for the board, no candidate garnered more than a tenth of the total votes available. All doctors are supposed to be sufficiently qualified to understand the rules of voting so the candidate with the maximum votes (87), and give or take 13 ballots as being spoilt, then that would be a grand total of 100 votes. A hundred votes are a tenth of the total number of registered voters as reflected by the national gazette of doctors.

Were nine tenths or 90 per cent of the voting population not interested in their wellbeing or was the system set up in such a way to reflect the results as shown? How do the current members of the council feel when the evidence is there that they were elected by a drastic minority of voters? Will the CMO be man enough to accept the fact that his tried and trusted formula is erroneous, and that the current election results are not a true reflection of the doctors he claims to serve? Will the honorable ministers of public health accept the results as they are on the good word of the CMO? Will the wider public sit idly by and watch corruption in its ugliest form continue? Who provides the checks and balances when the system that is put in place for good governance fails?

The world is watching, the doctors are watching especially the younger ones, those who feel under- represented and those with more to lose. Can the system make do without the 112 young doctors who have refused to continue with the government any longer? Can GPHC give the MoPH the 40 requested GMOs so that they replace their departing colleagues from the interior, and still function to optimum capacity? Can the government cope with the loss of almost 50 doctors every year for the foreseeable future, due to fulfillment of contractual obligations and the calling of the wider world? Are we as a government doing enough to keep our most prized asset, our human resource? We all know the answer. Let’s hope we see the change that we voted for. To see wrongs being committed and to sit idly by and allow the continuance of these wrongs makes one and all partners of wrongdoing. Stand up and be counted ministers of public health.

Regards,
Gustavo Kuerten