SEVERAL citizens stood outside the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Brickdam, Wednesday midday to peacefully call for the public health system to be improved, so that all Guyanese can benefit from better healthcare.

“We are out here to demand [and] stand up for our rights,” human rights activist Sherlina Nageer related. “We are demanding accountability, we are demanding better healthcare; there have been too many issues in this sector for too long.”

Nageer highlighted that as stated in the constitution of Guyana, all citizens have a right to healthcare within the public healthcare system. However, she contended that the public health institutions are used primarily by “poor people”. “We feel like poor people in Guyana – the ones using the public health systems – our lives don’t seem to matter as much,” the woman said.

She cited that over the years, there have been notable issues plaguing the public institutions including medical errors that have resulted in death, high infant and maternal mortality rates, drug shortages and the general lack of services in institutions across the country.
Further, she noted: “The fact that persons who do not have financial constraints are not using the public health system; that sends a message to us as poor Guyanese.”

These issues have been ongoing for too long, she posited, and added that all citizens of Guyana deserve a better public healthcare system. And in creating this “better” healthcare system, she specifically highlighted that abortion services in all hospitals across Guyana, providing birth control in all hinterland regions and creating and enforcing medical malpractice laws would be a few ideal solutions.

Many of the persons protesting were prompted by the recent deaths of three young children who were being treated for Leukaemia, a form of cancer, at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), due to the alleged maladministration of drugs. But Nageer highlighted: “It’s not a recent issue, it has been there for a while.”

In fact, Christina Scott, 37-year-old mother from Nismes, West Bank Demerara (WBD), had lost her child last October. It was reported that the child died soon after being delivered due to alleged head injuries. An investigation was purportedly launched into the matter.
The mother joined the group on Wednesday with her placard in hand, not only calling for a better healthcare system, but also begging for her own justice. The woman could not hold back her tears as she spoke. The loss of her child still lingers in her mind and the pain she feels is exacerbated, because no public official has been forthcoming with information on the matter.

Scott claimed that the child was delivered without the use of gloves and the brute force the doctors used while delivering the child caused the child’s head to become “mashed in”. Since then, she has been trying to meet with officials to find out about the investigation.
“Every time I call them, they telling me today tomorrow, today tomorrow,” the grieving woman said. In fact, since the incident she said that not a single official has met with her on the matter.

Scott is pregnant again, but said that she will be delivering this child at a private institution, since she is mistrustful of the public health system.

To this end, Nageer stressed that there needs to be greater accountability within the health sector also. “Errors will happen, nothing is foolproof. But we feel like there is not enough accountability when people lose their loved ones,” Nageer said. Another human rights activist, Karen DeSouza, shared that she joined with the group on Wednesday as well, because she too believes that the public health authorities are not being held accountable. “The fact that there are young lives who are supposed to be taken care of can just be destroyed in the way that these kids have been destroyed recently, it is not acceptable and it is not good enough,” DeSouza said.

Furthermore, she said that she has lost trust in officials saying that they have launched an investigation into accusations of malpractices because, according to her, the reports of these are not made known. “There needs to be infinitely better management than what we are seeing at the moment to bring those facilities up to the standard that we are demanding. It is not good enough,” she said. “We want them to report back to the problem what they’ve done, we need to see that justice is being served, we need to see more than promises from the minister…we need to see that people’s lives are being taken seriously,” Nageer said. Nageer noted too that the protest could potentially become a regular exercise, as she hopes that more people will join to call for a better and more accountable system.