–says Dr. Carpen

IT has been 18 months since the COVID-19 virus hit these shores and since then, healthcare workers have been working around the clock and Guyana is now battling a third wave of the deadly disease.

The pandemic has put a strain on healthcare facilities all across the world and Guyana is no different; as a matter of fact, doctors and nurses have even complained of being overworked. As such, the government has several contingency plans in place, including “importing” medical personnel, to bolster the work of our healthcare “heroes.”

This is according to the Head of Medical Services and Cardiology at the Georgetown Public Hospital, Dr. Mahendra Carpen, who was at the time speaking during a recent interview with the News Room.

Dr. Carpen reminded citizens that while major focus has been placed on the COVID-19 virus, medical professionals are still tasked with catering to patients with wide-ranging medical needs.

“We have to look at things like burnout, fatigue, etc. among the healthcare workers. But again, this is planning ahead, and being able to put things in place. If we don’t have the resources locally, we’ll import the resources to be able to look at this and I can probably hazard a guess that that mechanism is already being examined and looked at.

“We have not reached that stage and hopefully, we never get to a stage where we overwhelm our physical infrastructure. We still have, you know a lot of elasticity in the system, what our main challenge may be, is the human resource component,” said Dr. Carpen.

As it relates to the management of COVID-19, Dr. Carpen said that the local health sector is “satisfactorily positioned” with consumables such as bed spaces and other medical equipment to cater to the growing demand in the sector.

Just recently, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony, disclosed that the ministry has explored the possibility of having sections of the various hospitals across the country repurposed to focus on COVID-19 patients and their needs.

The Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal in Georgetown can only accommodate 200 persons and has an ICU capacity for 40 patients. Dr. Anthony had previously noted that the government is working to expand the capacity at this hospital and will also utilize the field hospital which was donated by Qatar to boost Guyana’s response to COVID-19.

Echoing similar sentiments, Dr. Carpen reiterated his confidence in the preparedness of the health sector to deal with the current influx of COVID-19 patients. He reminded the public that while the focus has been placed on COVID-19 treatment and care at the National Infectious Diseases Hospital, the ministry has not been leaving the regions unattended, but has “armed” them with the tools to transfer the vulnerable patients as soon as they can to the facility.

Meanwhile, Dr. Carpen said that while COVID-19 has taken the forefront in the health sector’s radar, the ministry is committed to tackling and providing relief to the many medical needs of the country’s citizens.

“COVID has brought with it a paradigm shift in how we address health care. It’s taken up pretty much all of our attention for the last two years, but the other things still remain, they don’t disappear.

The uncontrolled diabetic, the HIV, the lupus patient, the cancer patients, they don’t just disappear. Those diseases don’t disappear. And I’m quite certain that our physician colleagues outside of the COVID scenario continue to see patients, continue to offer care, and our nurses continue to turn up to work.”