THE government is looking to offer financial support for heart patients to undergo live-saving surgery, Vice-President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo told a community meeting at the Line Path Centre Ground, Region Six, on Monday.
The Vice-President was at the time responding to a matter raised by a resident, who said he is a heart patient and flagged the high cost to undergo critical surgery.
The cost to perform a heart surgery in Guyana is below $3M and overseas the cost his higher, which either way is outside the reach of many Guyanese.
Mr Jagdeo said the government is placing priority on healthcare and would explore offering financial assistance to heart patients, similar to the assistance package it allocated to patients on dialysis in the 2022 national budget.
Hundreds of Guyanese suffering from end-stage renal disease or ‘kidney failure’ and needing the life-saving weekly dialysis treatment are breathing a sigh of relief with the government’s announcement of the Dialysis Support Programme, which gives each patient up to $600,000 per annum for treatment.
A long-time advocate of government support for dialysis patients, Faye Abigail Yong, praised the government for hearing the cries of the people and coming to their assistance in Budget 2022.
Many patients suffering from kidney failure need between two to three dialysis sessions per week; however, with dialysis costing between $12, 000 to $15,000 per session, the cost to patients ranges between $1.248 million to $2.34 million per year.
“Personally, I’m very appreciative and grateful. Dialysis is a life-saving treatment and we cannot be on it without money, so without money we die. The government and President [Dr Irfaan] Ali are giving us a great assist from the burden of our everyday existence,” Yong had told the Guyana Chronicle.
“I’m happy that the government has listened to the plight of the dialysis patients. I’ve been lobbying for two years for relief from the burden of this astronomical treatment cost,” she said.
For persons suffering from kidney failure, dialysis works as an artificial kidney.