— Health Ministry targets 27,000 nursery school children for screening
STAYING in tune with the promise of providing quality healthcare to all Guyanese, the Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, on Friday, said that mental health services will be integrated into primary health care.
He made those remarks at the kick off session of the Joint Programme on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Children and Adolescents at the Grand Coastal Hotel.

“We want to make sure that mental health services are being integrated into primary healthcare…and so we have started work where we trained a lot of our primary care physicians to do some basic diagnostics,” the Health Minister stated.
Owing to the training provided, the physicians are able to detect mental health conditions such as depression.

Apart from this implementation, the minister said that in order to ensure that Guyana’s goal for healthcare was being met, the ministry was also working on a school screening programme with the aim to screen 27,000 nursery school children.

Dr. Anthony said that it will soon evolve to primary and then secondary. The screening will ensure that children undergo preventative check-ups so that if they are suffering from any condition, such can be detected. He said the programme ensures that a child’s health can be monitored and the necessary attention can be given.

Earlier this month, children in several communities across Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), received free health screening from the Ministry of Health and the regional health department.
The children were screened in a child-friendly environment at the Anna Regina, Essequibo car park. The screening was available to nursery school children with the primary aim of detecting if a child was suffering from any illness before entering the school system.