— Regional Health Officer, Dr. Quincy Jones

MATERNAL and infant mortality in some remote villages in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), is still a major cause for concern.

However, the Region Four Regional Democratic Council (RDC) believes that the construction of a maternity waiting home in the Long Creek area on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway can become a viable preventative measure.

The idea is the brainchild of the RDC’s Regional Health Officer (RHO), Dr. Quincy Jones and construction is expected to commence next month.

Speaking with Guyana Chronicle, Regional Executive Officer (REO) Pauline Lucas said the home will be constructed in the compound of the Long Creek Health Centre.
In explaining the initiative, she used the Amerindian village of St. Cuthbert’s Mission as an example.

Lucas explained that many pregnant women from the village are put at risk when they have to travel long distances in their third trimester to receive medical attention.

“Persons come from St. Cuthbert’s Mission and other riverine areas and some of them wait until the last moment to come down to town and then we find all sorts of complications.

So, what we decided to do is to build a waiting home; bring them out at six months [of pregnancy]; they’ll stay there, we’ll provide for them and everything like a home away from home. When they’re about to get the baby, we’ll take them down to the Georgetown Public Hospital or the Diamond Diagnostic Centre,” Lucas said.

St. Cuthbert’s Mission is located some 11 miles off the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
The REO said while the village has a health centre, it is not equipped to conduct deliveries unless there is truly an emergency.

There are other riverine communities which stand to benefit from the waiting home, such as Dora and Low Wood on the Demerara River and Laluni and Moblissa on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

Medics at the various health posts or centres in the villages will be asked to encourage pregnant mothers who are between the six to nine-month period of pregnancy to be transferred to the waiting home.

Lucas said the home will be designed to have all the comforts a pregnant woman would need and, while not mandatory, the RDC encourages all women in the area to take advantage of the home when it comes to fruition.

“The waiting home is everything a home would have. It has a television; persons will be cooking meals for them,” Lucas began, as she listed a string of the many comforts.

“We’re hoping within another week to wrap up the evaluation and then the tender board will do the awarding of contracts. Once everything is successful and the award is completed, then our forecast is for the actual building to start construction somewhere around mid next month.”

Another maternity waiting home will be constructed in the Moruca Sub-Region in Region One (Barima-Waini) while other waiting homes around the country such as the Maternity Waiting home at the Indigenous Residence in Georgetown have recently undergone rehabilitation works.