By Wendella Davidson

THE Leonora Cottage Hospital which has been rebranded the Leonora Comprehensive Diagnostic and Treatment Centre (LCD&TC) is on record as the only public health institution, countrywide, to offer an endoscopy service.

The non-surgical procedure entails the examination of a person’s digestive tract, by passing an endoscope camera through the mouth and throat and into the esophagus. This allows a doctor to view the esophagus, stomach, and upper part of the patient’s small intestine.

The service is offered free of cost as against a lone private institution where it also offered. According to Region Three, Regional Health Officer, Kathlene Armstrong, the facility sees in excess of 20 patients on a weekly basis.

Patients from as far away as Region Nine, the Corentyne, Region Six and Linden, in Region 10, have accessed the services, she said; the institution is one of five health facilities countrywide that have been retrofitted to be `Smart Hospitals.’ The others are the Diamond Diagnostic Centre, Mabaruma and Lethem Regional Hospitals and the Paramakatoi Health Centre.

The `Smart Hospital’ concept refers to a health facility which is both safe and utilises ‘green’ technology. Hospitals and other health facilities embracing this concept must provide standard and efficient health care before, during, and even immediately after the event of any natural or man-made disaster.

The LCD&TC is being upgraded from an antenatal clinic to one where a full range of maternity services, from pre-birth to post-delivery health care, will soon be offered. This is in a bid to reduce the number of referrals to the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) and the Georgetown Public Hospital.

BRAINCHILD

The project is the brainchild of President David Granger, who during a visit to the maternity ward of the GPHC in 2015, expressed concern about the condition under which pregnant women were being treated at the main facility. Then, Public Health Minister, Dr. George Norton and Minister of State, Joe Harmon, who had accompanied the President on the visit, were urged to upgrade the facility so that it would cater better to maternity cases.

Prior to the upgrade, the facility was a cottage hospital and had a maternity section that was condemned, resulting in all maternity cases being referred to the WDRH. As a result of the President’s initiative, a number of women have started going there to give birth, even as construction is ongoing. Armstrong said she expects more women and other people to begin accessing the facility, as word gets out about the various services that are being offered there.

The facility is already being viewed as one with a difference: it serves not only the catchment areas of Leonora to Uitvlugt; it is also the first point of treatment for critically ill patients who go there from Hubu backdam, Parika backdam , Wakenaam and Leguan and other neighbouring islands.

Those critically ill patients are diagnosed, treated and stabilised, before being referred if their condition is critical, to the West Demerara Regional Hospital or the Georgetown Public Hospital.

A total of eight Cuban and five nurses from the Cuban Medical Brigade, along with seven local doctors and eight nurses service the 24-hour facility.

Upon completion, the state-of-the-art maternity ward with 25 beds, 10 for pre-natal cases and 15 for post-natal, will cater for C-Section patients as two theatres, a large and small, have been included. In addition, there is a recovery room, a scrub room, nurses’ station, a ramp, a chute to convey dirty linen, a laboratory, along with a spacious drugs bond and a records department.

OTHER SERVICES
Other services being offered are dental, where in addition to extractions polishing, cleaning and the filling of teeth are offered as well, VCT, and eye care.

The latter is offered at a department that is staffed by Dr Tahira Alli, the optometrist; Dr Alli is assisted by Cuba-born Jaline Fvoman Linares an ophthalmologist, with Guyanese Fiona Jordan functioning as a clerk. Eyes glasses are also dispensed at the department.
Among others from the Cuban Medical Brigade who serve at the facility are Dr Eladio Silot, an orthopaedic surgeon, who has been working in Guyana for 10 years and Dr Danaids Rodes, a paediatrician who has been in Guyana for 20 months.

Meanwhile, through an initiative by Regional Executive Officer (REO) Jennifer Ferreira-Dougall, a kitchen is under construction to cater for that build-up in patients that is anticipated. Plans are to extend that facility by the year 2020 and to build a tuck shop, where patients can purchase basic amenities.

The road leading to the LCD&DC also serves as a main roadway for the National Insurance Scheme and access to the sea defence. Over the years, it had deteriorated and Armstrong said transporting patients via an ambulance or the stretcher had become very risky.

The thoroughfare was recently repaired at a cost of about $10M, and a car park to the tune of $10M was also built to cater for visitors to the hospital, who because of inadequate parking space, had been utilising both sides of the roadway. The vehicles too had posed difficulty for the movement of the ambulance.