–UK High Commissioner says
WITH five smart and fully climate-resilient hospitals commissioned in Guyana, this is a blueprint that should be used in other parts of the world, British High Commissioner to Guyana Jane Miller has said.
She made those remarks during a reception in celebration of the United Kingdom’s Smart Hospitals initiative, which was recently completed here.

According to Miller, with the completion of this initiative, the UK now has a toolkit for retrofitting these facilities, and that has been adopted by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
She added that while this was first presented at the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP26) as a mechanism for improving health infrastructure throughout the world, they believe that it is going to be presented at COP28 and is being discussed at the World Health Assembly, noting that Guyana is a trailblazer on this path.

“So, I feel hugely privileged that something that’s become global really started in this region and is now new standards that are going to be used across the world in terms of making the resilience,” the High Commissioner said.
Miller told the gathering that about seven years ago the UK government started the initiative whereby they wanted to ensure that health facilities become more resilient.

Subsequently, she revealed that an assessment of facilities across the entire Caribbean, including Guyana, began and five facilities were chosen in Guyana to be retrofitted. Miller said that the intention was never to end at the retrofitting of facilities but to develop a blueprint.
“The whole idea of the project was to develop a blueprint to develop a toolkit that will enable facilities to be retrofitted or facilities to be built with better facilities or with better standards in mind,” the High Commissioner said.

Among the key things they were looking for, she said, were to make the facilities more resilient to natural disasters and also greener with the use of renewable energy, among other things.
In Guyana, the five facilities that were retrofitted were Mabaruma, Lethem and Leonora Hospitals; the Diamond Hospital, and the Paramakatoi Health Centre.

Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony during his address, said that in addition to the retrofitting that took place at these facilities across the country, the government is also working to make additional investments in these facilities to bring them to an even higher standard.

Against this backdrop, he said that the ministry has been adding lots of things to these facilities. He said they added a maternity ward at Leonora, while at Mabaruma, they have worked to ensure that the facility would be able to have oxygen on site. He went on to add that the ministry is also now adding an intensive care unit.
“And there are other things that are being done to improve and make these facilities…so it has been a really good partnership for us,” Dr Anthony said.