Dentistry programme restarts at Cheddi Jagan Dental School

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony MP, says dentistry classes have resumed at the Cheddi Jagan Dental School, after being closed for some time due to the pandemic.

Minister Anthony made the announcement during today’s COVID-19 Update.

“We have restarted our dental programmes, training programmes that is, so the various programmes that we normally run for dental/ dentexes and so forth, those have been restarted. They were suspended because of COVID but now we are able to restart them, of course, using the appropriate COVID protocols,” Minister Anthony said.

During down time, a new pharmacy was constructed to improve service to the public. A number of key facilities, including a sterilisation room were refurbished. Work is also ongoing on a theatre to accommodate maxillofacial surgeries.

“We recognise that persons who require some specialised types of dental work are not able to get it anywhere else. In a lot of cases, it’s more than just the normal dentistry that people would come to the institution for, but it requires operation by a maxillofacial surgeon.

Currently at the institution we have a number of Maxillofacial Surgeons, but they don’t have a theatre to operate. So, in this year’s budget, we had allocated $24.1 million to construct a theatre for maxillofacial surgery at the dental school.”

Minister Anthony said the bidding process has been completed and the contract for construction will be signed during this week, with construction set to start by next week.

The Minister is hoping the facility would be up and ready by the end of the year.