— gov’t making immediate purchase, working to normalise services, says Min. Anthony

GUYANA, like many countries around the world, has been forced to expend resources in the fight against the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and, simultaneously, manage routine and other ailments, a task which has been challenging for the country, mainly because medical drugs have not been purchased since 2017.
There has been a chronic shortage of medicines since 2017, said Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony during a virtual press briefing on Friday.
This, he said, has been a major constraint to the fight against COVID-19 and the management of other ailments.

In recognising Guyana’s situation, the new government made arrangements to have an immediate purchase of medicines.
“The procurement people are in the final stages of getting medicine to provide district hospitals and so forth,” said Dr. Anthony.
Guyana recorded its first case of COVID-19 in March, 2020, and while a lot of attention has been placed on the fight against this scourge, Dr. Anthony said a lot of health facilities were not able to effectively deliver care in other areas.

“Since March when we got our first case (COVID-19), there was panic and we found that many facilities where we would manage routine or regular medical issues, when people came they were not getting enough care, but we are looking to open back facilities and ensure care is provided,” said Dr. Anthony.
He assured that the Ministry of Health will be working to ‘normalise’ services, especially programmes which have performed well over the years.
“Some of them (medical programmes) are in jeopardy because we do not have medicines available…so we need to fill that gap….we are working on it,” said Dr. Anthony.

As for COVID-19, it was reported that the Government has been actively seeking support to fight COVID-19 and it reported, recently, that President Irfaan Ali, in an address to the nation, had announced that government was in the process of securing US$60M to fund various aspects of its response to the deadly pandemic.
President Ali had said that those funds were being sourced from various international development partners, including the World Bank, the IDB and the Islamic Development Bank.

There has also been rapid-response assistance from bilateral partners.
According to the President, the government has consulted with stakeholders nationwide to address the COVID-19 epidemic in a holistic manner.