MEDICAL practitioners in Guyana are being trained to utilise the country’s new Death Registration Form which is set to improve the collection of data to better combat the leading causes of death locally.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO), Dr. Karen Gordon-Campbell, told Guyana Chronicle on Sunday that the form now includes sections critical for statistical data on chronic diseases and pregnancy-related deaths.
She stated that the new form is reflective of what is used in developed countries and will help push the Ministry of Public Health ahead in guiding citizens towards longer, healthier lives.
To eliminate duplications, the form requests the deceased’s National Insurance Scheme (NIS) number, National Identification (ID) number and name.
A part from the previous information such as cause of death and other related information, the new form includes a section to determine the deceased’s tobacco, alcohol or any other substance use.
“We’re trying to associate any death that’s related to tobacco use and alcohol use and other substances. We never used to before but [because] now we’re talking about lifestyle changes [as included in] the Tobacco Law which we introduced last year, now we’re trying to identify deaths that are related to tobacco smoking,” Dr Gordon-Campbell said.
A section in the new form also seeks to identify deaths related to pregnancy.
Those filling out the form can check either of the boxes: not pregnant within past year; pregnant at time of death; not pregnant but pregnant within 42 days of death; not pregnant but pregnant within 43 days to one year before death or unknown if pregnant within the past year.
“This death registration form is the instrument we’re using to collect data and it’s now going to be more sensitive to picking up deaths that are related to lifestyles such as tobacco and alcohol use or pregnancy,” she said.
Crucial to ensuring that the form achieves its objectives is the training of medical practitioners.
Several training sessions, involving various regions, have already been conducted for the year whereby doctors and medics were taught the importance of filling out the document completely.
“We have too many cases where the diagnosis is not properly filled. If we don’t fill the diagnosis properly it means when it goes to the staff department and we bring all the data together we can’t determine the top 10 causes of death,” she explained, adding: “If we don’t know properly what are our top 10 causes of death then it’s difficult for us to plan and to allocate limited resources to where it’s most needed.”
Another important detail Gordon-Campbell mentioned is that while the previous death registration form was filled out in triplicate, the new form is now required to be filled out in quadruplicate.
This means that a form must be filled out by the General Register Office (GRO); the patient; the Ministry of Public Health and the clinic/medical facility where the individual was pronounced dead.
“We’re really trying to improve the quality of our data; the completeness of the data; and the timeliness of the data,” the DCMO explained
