A QUIET force seems to be infusing the nation’s psyche with the positive desire to transform all Guyanese institutions and Guyanese life into world-class and achieving the best standards of the developed countries.  People of all classes, of all political persuasions and professions, seem to have become possessed with that spirit.  Its manifestation has been calm and not as overt as among the French revolutionaries when they marched from Marseilles to Paris in 1789.

One segment of life where this spirit is evident is in the health sector, where modernisation has been approached in a pragmatic and holistic way without an overall blueprint.

For example, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony has been quietly executing a COVID-19 programme which is the best in CARICOM and one of the better ones in the world.  Simultaneously, he has been upgrading the health sector legislation by repealing those laws which have fallen into desuetude and have no relevance today;  other legislation is being revised to make them more relevant, such as the  Antibiotics Act or the Medical Practitioners Act, whose amendments now make them entirely relevant;  the third tier of legislative reform is the formulation of new laws such as the Emergency Services Act or the Pharmaceutical Act that would encompass the current types of medication on sale and in use.

The most important and indeed, revolutionary new legislation which Dr Anthony has proposed to Parliament is the Human Organ and Tissue Transplant Bill, whereby a patient who requires a new organ to save or prolong his/her life is permitted to use the organ extracted from a clinically dead person, who had either been registered as a donor before death or whose relatives had consented to the removal of the organ after death.  The donor would only be pronounced dead after he/she had been examined and ascertained by two medical practitioners.  The donor would also only be pronounced as dead when they have displayed irreversible cessation or stoppage of circulatory and respiratory functions and irreversible cessation of the entire brain.  Though the law does not take cognisance of the condition known as Near Death Experience (NDE), whereby it is believed that a person who may be clinically dead for up to an hour could regain consciousness,  surgeons in quiet cognisance of the NDE phenomenon give some time before the extraction procedure.  There has so far been no unanimous scientific acceptance of NDE, but acceptance of its validity seems to be increasing.

The new law establishes a Human Organ and Tissue Transplant Agency, which will maintain a register of donors and those in need of transplants. Provision is also made for facilities for the efficient storage of organs, cells and biofluids.

The new law prescribes some socially protective measures such as the prohibition of the sale or trade of human organs, tissue, cells or biofluids, with the penalty for infringement being five years in prison and a fine of $5 million.  Or there are specific requirements for organ transplants for minors, both as donors and recipients.  There is also provision made for the donation of cadavers (corpses) to universities, medical schools and other scientific programmes for the purpose of research.  Another important social responsibility of the Transplant Agency is the execution of a comprehensive programme of public education to increase awareness among the organ- transplant population and become organ donors.

Dr Kishore Persaud, Head of Multi-Organ Transplant and Vascular Surgery Department of the Georgetown Public Hospital, welcomed the legislation and pointed out that it would bring relief to hundreds of patients who have suffered kidney failure and are receiving dialysis, one of the more expensive treatments.  Many cannot have regular dialysis and thus live a poor quality of life as long as they manage to survive.

On the macro level of national health development, the government is still committed to building three Specialty Hospitals in the three counties.  Some years ago, a Specialty Hospital was being funded and built by the Government of India, but when the APNU+AFC government came into office, they felt that the remaining funds in the project were better spent in general healthcare, and the donor was persuaded to this position; the Specialty Hospital was accordingly shelved.  Now it is again resuscitated.

The Ministry of Health is committed to establishing a world-class healthcare service in all parts of the country and is doing so by several streams of action.  In addition to the Specialty Hospitals,  six new hospitals will be constructed across the country. Among them would be a children and maternity and psychiatric hospital.  The ministry is focused on both the infrastructure as well as the quality of service, and in pursuit of this would be procuring modern equipment from the known and established manufacturers.

In furtherance of the ideal of providing healthcare of the highest quality, President Dr Irfaan Ali, Vice-President Dr Bharat Jagdeo and Minister Dr Frank Anthony held discussions with an executive team from the world-renowned Mount Sinai Health System of New York.  The Mount Sinai Health System is structured around eight hospital campuses and includes more than 6,600 primary and specialty-care physicians and 13 ambulatory surgical centres.

The Executive Vice President of Mount Sinai, Dr Arthur A Klein, indicated the role they would play: “One of the most sophisticated investments the country needs to make in its people is healthcare, and we are here to work with the President in defining a plan in the development of more sophisticated healthcare, also healthcare access improvement;  what we can do in Georgetown, but also in the rest of the country.”