– Guyana gets equipment from Mount Sinai, Hess Corporation
WITH the aim of implementing and strengthening the health services within the educational system across the nation, the Government of Guyana, through the Ministries of Health and Education, has collaborated to facilitate oral health, hearing, and vision screening for all children and adolescents.

As part of consultancy facilitation between Mount Sinai Health Systems and the Hess Corporation towards the Comprehensive Child and Youth Health Programme (CYHP), Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, and the Director of Primary Health Care, Dr. Ertensia Hamilton, last Friday visited the Ministry of Health’s Brickdam Headquarters to accept several testing instruments and other medical materials.

In an interview with the Sunday Chronicle, Former Minister of Health and now Advisor, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy explained that the aim of the initiative is to improve the health of school children ranging from ages five to 17 years old.
“School health programmes have always been a priority for the People’s Progressive Party Civic government. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education have collaborated to ensure that each child’s health, from nursery to secondary school, will be taken care of. There is a school health officer that is located at the Ministry of Education, and that officer works closely with the Health Ministry to ensure that all children have access to health care,” Ramsammy said.

In order to expand the health programme in the school system, he explained that the screening of children for vision care, oral health, and hearing will be done so that any issue relating to the eyes, ears, and teeth can be detected and “nipped in the bud.”
Dr. Ramsammy continued, “We recognised that many children in school may be at a learning disadvantage because they are not seeing or hearing well, and they may not realise that on their own. To them (the children), they may think that seeing with a certain type of vision, such as blur, is normal, and they may not recognise that they aren’t hearing as they should. So, we are implementing a programme where all of our children throughout their schooling will be screened.”

With the school health programme that is slated to be rolled out in the coming weeks, Ramsammy said they will also ensure that the children’s oral health is taken care of. “Gone are the days when our only hope was extraction; now, with more advanced technology in the health sector, we are looking to save the tooth instead of taking it out. And that is why we are starting our oral health screening at the nursery level as well.”

Dr. Ramsammy further stated that the Ministry of Health will be procuring two dental buses for 2023, noting that they will “obviously” need more. Unlike the colonial days, Dr. Ramsammy said that the “long-term” goal is to establish dental buses in every region throughout Guyana so that problems can be fixed in a more modern way with modern equipment.
“These buses are to make sure that qualified medical personnel visit all the schools across the country. The dental buses will be fully equipped with dental chairs, X-ray machines, and all the other medical conveniences so that we can meet and take care of our children.”

The advisor also noted that the goal of the government and the respective ministries is to ensure that at the end of each child’s school life, they will leave with a healthier body than when they first enrolled.
“It is a programme that is being developed…We have at least 27,000 nursery-level children in the country, and we are hoping that they will benefit from testing this year. Mount Sinai has donated kits that will allow us to do these screenings. For future years, we will have more of these kits so that in every region across the country, the Regional Health Officers (RHOs) in the public health system will have them so that they can go into the different schools”, Dr Ramsammy said.

He also related that the Ministries of Health and Education will work on training teachers so that they can conduct some of the screenings as well. He also noted that the programme will also include educating children about proper hygiene, promoting physical exercise, and having healthy conversations with them in order to improve their health and their lives.

“While we are defining the guidelines of how often the children should be screened and what they should be screened for, we want the ownership of this programme to be with the Ministry of Education. I want to personally commend the Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, for being so proactive on this initiative. Together with her Chief Education Officers, she has been meeting with us and requesting that we screen these children. Minister Manickchand has been ensuring that vulnerable children, those with disabilities, and others are being taken care of. I also want to say that all children suffering from a hearing or vision problem after screening would be provided with a free hearing aid and free eyeglasses,” Dr. Ramsammy said.

He also expressed gratitude on behalf of the Government of Guyana, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Education to Hess and Mount Sinai Health Systems for the equipment, which he said will enable the medical team to start screening across the regions.