THE Health Ministry on Friday officially kick-started its dialysis initiative with the distribution of funds to patients who are on treatment.

At the first payout at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said the government has set aside some $180 million in this year’s budget to cater for assisting dialysis patients.
He stated that it is not a one-off initiative, and as such, recipients will benefit from a grant each year to assist in payments for their treatment.

“This year we have allocated $180 million for dialysis treatment and that is why each one of you would be getting a grant of $600,000, and this is not a one-off thing; this means that every year you will be getting $600,000 to assist you with paying for your dialysis,” Dr Anthony said.

During the handing-over ceremony, he stated that if one were to look back, 18 years ago dialysis treatment was not even available in Guyana; however, strides have been made over the years to get the country to where it is and have treatment available in some regions of the country.

The Health Minister added that it has been a journey in providing dialysis care in the country and while the infrastructure has been set up, work must be done to maintain certain standards.

As such, he indicated that consultants from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) have been here in the country and they will be working with each of the dialysis providers in the country to ensure that standards are kept at each of the facilities.

Meanwhile, nephrologist at the Georgetown Public Hospital, Dr Haimchand Barran, stated that the grant comes at no better time as recently the GPHC has been seeing a lot more admissions, even as they try to raise awareness about kidney disease and dialysis treatment.

“We have been seeing a lot more admissions with kidney disease and more so, to start dialysis because there is more awareness and we have been trying to share this information and the numbers have been increasing quite a lot,” Dr Barran said.

He added that financial constraints is one of the most frequent reasons dialysis patients are admitted at the GPHC and further reiterated the importance of distribution of the grants for these beneficiaries.