–legislation to replace 90-year-old Public Health Ordinance, Health Minister says

WITH massive transformation taking place in Guyana’s healthcare sector, the drafting and consultations for a new Public Health Act are still underway to modernise the country’s legislation.
This was according to Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, during a recent end-of-year press conference.

The Health Minister said that, at its current draft stage, the new act already has some nine chapters.
When asked by the Guyana Chronicle about the process of drafting the new Public Health Bill, Dr. Anthony noted that it is still in draft form as it is a huge bill.
While noting that what is being attempted is quite new, he indicated that currently there are nine chapters of which each chapter is about 50 to 100 pages.

“So you can imagine the size of this bill and it covers everything from how do you regulate things like housing, [and] environment so it’s a massive piece of work,” he noted.
The drafting of this act requires a multiagency approach and therein lies some of the challenges, Dr. Anthony said, noting that before things are confirmed they must ensure that it is aligned with the different agencies that would have to implement it.
“It would still require a lot more consultation but the first draft is there and we will continue doing those consultations as we move forward,” the Health Minister said.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, had also noted that the drafting of this new Public Health Act was a massive undertaking.
He noted: “That will take some time, and we will have to do tremendous public consultations in relation to that bill, all the NDCs, all the RDCs, local government structure, will all have to be part of the consultation.
In mid-2023, Dr. Anthony indicated that while the government has constantly updated the country’s legislation to accommodate modernisation, they had started working on a new omnibus legislation for the country’s health sector.
The new piece of legislation will replace the Public Health Ordinance of 1934 which is just around 90 years old.

Since entering office, the Attorney General, in previous reports, told the Guyana Chronicle that it was necessary for the piece of ‘archaic’ legislation to be updated.
In a 2021 interview with this newspaper, Nandlall said that the Public Health Ordinance was outmoded and unfitting to reflect the current realities of society and since then a new Public Health Act was being formulated.