– Health Minister says
IN the past two years, the government of Guyana has made a significant investment of approximately $300 million to upgrade healthcare facilities in Region One, leading to a higher standard of care for the local population.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, revealed this information during his recent visit to the region. He emphasised that the investments in the region were making a noticeable impact on the residents, who were benefitting from improved services.
“In this region, we have been investing a lot to make sure that we can upgrade a lot of health centres and health posts and also the hospitals,” he said.
Giving some background, he added that just about a year ago the Mabaruma hospital was completely upgraded and as such now has a good operating theatre, intensive care unit, recovery room and upgraded wards, among other things.
Further to that, at the Kumaka District Hospital, he indicated that when he first visited the facility, it was unable to do surgical operations and that had been like that for a long time.
However, he added that they were able to put in a surgical theatre in the facility to offer those types of services. Additionally, a surgeon, anaesthesiologist and even a gynaecologist have been coming to the region and offering those services regularly.
Additionally, the minister mentioned government’s intention to have those officials stationed in the area, enabling the provision of daily services.
“We have put a lot of money to repair, fix, enhance our health centres and I can safely say that for almost all of the health centres in the region that we would have fixed over the last two years,” Dr Anthony said.
Apart from the regional budget, he mentioned that the region has received approximately $300 million directly from the central ministry to upgrade health centres and health posts.
As such, he said that if any health centres need to be upgraded, that is something that the ministry will be able to do through this year’s budget.
He added, “All in all you’re seeing we’re making big investments in the region and I think people can feel that change that is happening they can feel that impact that these investments are having.”
