–has capacity to treat up to 50 patients

THE Ministry of Health, as part of its continued effort to have COVID-19 facilities across the country, has commissioned an $80 million COVID-19 unit at the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH), Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara).

The West Demerara COVID-19 unit is the second facility dedicated to exclusively treating COVID-19 positive patients. The first facility of this nature is the National Infectious Diseases Hospital, Liliendaal.

The accident and emergency unit of the West Demerara Regional Hospital was repurposed to create the new COVID-19 unit at the Region Three medical facility.

In September, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, had said that the government’s vision is to repurpose hospitals so that the country’s capacity to treat persons infected with COVID-19 would be adequate.

The commissioning of the COVID-19 unit at the WDRH is part and parcel of the government’s decision to decentralise its capability to cater for COVID-19 patients from the National Infectious Diseases Hospital.

The Region Three unit is equipped to cater for fifty patients simultaneously and includes sections for maternal patients, children and an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). This will supplement the capacity of the Infectious Diseases Hospital, which could treat up 200 persons and has an ICU capacity of forty patients.

Director-General of the Health Ministry, Dr. Vishwa Mahadeo, said that the initiative is “instrumental” in the fight against the deadly COVID-19 virus.

Speaking at a simple ceremony, Dr. Mahadeo related that the decentralisation of the services offered at the COVID-19 unit is pivotal to government’s aim of bringing health services to the people.

“This in one way is bringing health care to the people, they don’t have to go access it in Georgetown, they can access it right here. Persons in Region Three could now access it right here in Region Three and this is what we’re trying to get done in all of the regions,” Dr. Mahadeo said.

NOT JUST REGION THREE
While this unit is stationed in Region Three, it will not cater to just residents of the region, the Director-General said, noting that residents from Regions One, Two and Seven, who are in need of care, will also be able to benefit from the facility.

“The unit will cater to Region Three, but as far as I know, Region Three has been catering to patients from Region Two for example, and from Region One who are transferred to Region Two and are making their way onwards to Region Four. But this facility, if they can be managed here, that’s it, that’s their destination.

“Region Seven is the same thing, they come through the river; when they come here they are managed here,” Dr. Mahadeo said.

Also, Mahadeo related that in the event of there being an upsurge in cases of COVID-19 at the central “COVID-19 hospital” at Liliendaal, systems will be put in place to facilitate the transfer of patients to the West Demerara COVID-19 unit.

Administrator of the WDRH, Melissa Ramdeen, told the Guyana Chronicle that staffing for the unit consists of doctors and nurses of the hospital, who have volunteered to, in some cases, double their work-load and working hours to cater to their regular duties at the hospital as well as the duties at the newly established COVID-19 Unit.

She called them heroes, saying: “Our doctors worked out a system for their department; so for each section of the hospital, whether it’s the paediatrics, maternity, general surgery or so on, each one of those departments, they came together and identified two persons from the team who will be assigned to this unit.

“It means they would have to work extra hours, but they haven’t complained about it… this is something that my staff is willingly doing; our nurses are doing the same thing.”