MINISTER of Health, Frank Anthony, has said that dentistry classes have resumed at the Cheddi Jagan Dental School which was closed for some time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have restarted our dental programmes, training programmes that is, so the various programmes that we normally run for dental/ dentexes and so forth, those have been restarted. They were suspended because of COVID but now we are able to restart them, of course, using the appropriate COVID protocols,” Minister Anthony said during Thursday’s COVID-19 Update.
During the down time, a new pharmacy was constructed to enhance the level of service offered to the public. A number of key facilities, including a sterilisation room were refurbished. Work is also ongoing on a theatre to accommodate maxillofacial surgeries.

“We recognise that persons who require some specialised types of dental work are not able to get it anywhere else. In a lot of cases, it’s more than just the normal dentistry that people would come to the institution for, but it requires operation by a maxillofacial surgeon.
“Currently, at the institution, we have a number of Maxillofacial Surgeons, but they don’t have a theatre to operate. So, in this year’s budget, we had allocated $24.1 million to construct a theatre for maxillofacial surgery at the dental school,” Dr. Anthony said.
Additionally, he related that the bidding process has been completed and the contract for construction will be signed during this week, with construction set to start by next week. The minister is optimistic that the facility would be up and running by the end of this year. (DPI)