–President Ali tells GPHC healthcare personnel; emphasises importance of stakeholders ‘owning the transformation’ in order to achieve required results
–highlights measures that will be implemented to bolster services at public hospital

THERE is no shortcut to building a world-class healthcare system, but in order to achieve this goal, there must be collaboration between healthcare personnel and the government, according to President Dr. Irfaan Ali.

President Ali made the foregoing remarks at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) where he met with a number of healthcare personnel on Friday.

During his address, the President said that there are serious investments being made in the healthcare system, and in making these investments, it is expected that within a short time-span, Guyana must be able to deliver efficient, reliable and quality healthcare to its citizens, and become the “premier healthcare system in the region”.

According to him, the government also wants to structurally integrate the healthcare system into the economy as an important revenue earner in the future.

“So, these investments and the expansion of the infrastructure, both to the public and private healthcare system, are around these core principles,” the President said.

He added: “It is only in this collaborative approach that we will be able to build a system where the practitioners own the changes, own the system, own the modernisation. If we don’t create the ownership for all the stakeholders, then we will not be able to derive the results we want.”

Moreover, since the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government assumed office, they have been making steady progress in the expansion of the healthcare system, and as a result, there will be an expansion of services, according to the President. And soon there will be the launch of the national approach to testing for prostate cancer.

He went on to say that there have been many partnerships within the last three years. Using the Mount Sinai Healthcare System as an example, he said that the objective here is to build our healthcare system to the point where the brand could be “confidently attached”.

TEAM APPROACH
The government wants to work with healthcare workers to craft a team approach to healthcare, and not a compartmentalised approach, according to Dr. Ali.

With that said, one of the things catered for within this year’s budget is the development of regional health services for the hospitals to allow citizens to have better experiences.
“The worst thing when you’re not feeling well is to go into a place that does not look well,” the President noted.

Further, there are efforts being deployed to establish a customer response mechanism.

“One of the things we’re thinking about is to have a call centre approach where if a citizen, both a health clinic or a hospital, and [if] they’re dissatisfied with the service, then that citizen can easily call, through a call centre approach, and make their complaint so that we can have a more professional and efficient system, and more responsive to the needs,” he said.

Focusing more on the GPHC, Dr. Ali said that the investments they are making in the hospital will aid the nation in having a state-of-the art forensic, biochemistry and pathology laboratory.
Also, they are also advancing care in terms of surgical intervention.

NO SHORTCUTS
Continuing to set the foundation for world-class healthcare, the President also called for discussions in key areas where there are backlogs, and which are these areas that require imported specialised help.

Referencing the 12 hospitals that are being constructed nationwide, Dr. Ali said that they will bring different levels of services, which will require a greater degree of management, and these investments will aid in drastically reducing the workload at GPHC.

However, when these hospitals come into operation, the President said the healthcare personnel will need to identify the gaps and start working on a system that will allow the government to fill them.

“There is no shortcut to this; it must be planned, structured and targetted, and all of us must be part of this decision-making or idea-development forum,” the Head of State said.
Shifting his attention to the world-class paediatric and maternal hospital in Ogle, which is currently under construction, the President said that he wants this to be managed by Guyana’s local capability, as far as possible.

“I want that to be managed by our local capability as far as possible. We have to identify what are the gaps, knowing the level of service that will come with that facility. What are the gaps, and ensuring that we provide the training the adjustments in the system so when that facility comes into existence, we’ll be ready,” Dr Ali stated.

He also listed a number of national initiatives that are being created to benefit all Guyanese, such as the citizens’ health mobile app development programme.

BRIDGING GAPS
With Guyana growing rapidly and having a diverse set of people, the President addressed the issue of language barriers.

“The final issue I want to address is that in the system, we have a number of doctors that were trained in Cuba, so you have the added advantage of being good at Spanish. We want now to align your capability with the nurses and doctors who are Spanish- speaking in a system.

“So that we will have, if you have a hospital with 10 Spanish-speaking nurses and you have two doctors who are trained in Cuba, we then develop a core group with those two doctors so that we have a better communication channel and better support channel in terms of the capability that they bring, [and] ensuring that that capability is not hindered because of language gaps and language challenges,” the President said.