Government aiming to provide quality first world health services

The Government of Guyana is aiming to transform the country’s health sector to ensure that citizens nationwide have access to quality, first world health services.

During his address at the recommissioning of the Lethem Regional Hospital as a SMART health facility on Friday, His Excellency, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali stated that he has charged Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony, along with the rest of the Cabinet, to ensure this happens. He stated that healthcare is divided into three main categories.

“We have healthcare community level, we have health care, the sub regional level, health care, the regional level and health care at the national level.”

Healthcare at the national level is further divided into two categories -primary healthcare and private healthcare. Primary health care, he said, is supported by the Government while private healthcare will be supported through Government incentives.

“In the private healthcare system, we want to build a health care system that is part of our economy, that will be part of health tourism, will be part of an international structure that will provide health services globally. So, you will see us giving the private health care provided a lot of incentives in the next five years to improve and ramp up their development.”

The Head of State disclosed that engagements are being held with investors to make this a reality.  He reemphasised his Government’s commitment to investing heavily in the healthcare sector not only in infrastructure and equipment, but in human capital as well.

Part of the Government’s plan is to decentralise access to basic services and ensure that the quality of the services offered is up to standard countrywide.

“We want to go into all the health centers and we want to bring the standards up so that they can provide basic primary health care one, but most importantly, they can provide proper health education to the community.”

The investments and developments being made are all part of the PPP/C Administration’s 2020 to 2025 manifesto to improve the delivery of healthcare services countrywide. This includes the upgrading of health facilities such as hospitals and health centers to ensure there is an adequate supply of pharmaceuticals, along with expanding primary and tertiary health care.