Guyana was not ready for Mass testing – Dr. Carpen
−Health Ministry addressed issue with urgent capacity building for Medical Technologists
DPI, Guyana, Thursday, August 20, 2020
Dr. Mahendra Carpen, a Cardiologist and member of the Georgetown Public Hospital’s Task Force for COVID-19 has noted that since the PPP/C government took office they have identified gaps in the previous national response to the pandemic and put measures in place to address these.
One such deficit was the country’s unpreparedness to conduct mass testing for the novel coronavirus.
In an interview with the DPI on Wednesday, Dr. Carpen explained that the three components needed to respond to the pandemic – testing machine, test kits and human resources – could only manage small scale testing.
This was as a result of limited quantities of test kits and a small human resource component.
This has since been addressed by the Irfaan Ali administration. Since assuming office, the PPP/C government has sourced test kits and mass testing has been ordered in all regions to ascertain the COVID-19 situation.
Since August 4 (over 15 days) approximately 300 new cases were confirmed.
The human resource shortfall at the National Public Health Reference Laboratory where these tests are conducted has since been addressed with the training of additional medical technologists.
Dr. Carpen noted that previously, “It seemed like we were satisfied with doing 10, 15 maybe 20 tests a day. That was below capacity and at that level, we did not need more human resources. However, as the pandemic continued the numbers started rising and more patients needed to be tested.”
Over the last two weeks “we got more test kits but we did not have trained personnel. The process, which starts with the training was implemented and began last week. There are two components to this training. An online or theory aspect and then there is the practical aspect. We are just over halfway there,” he further clarified.
By the week ending August 22, the medical technologists will form teams to facilitate more testing within 24 hours. The target number is 300 test samples to be processed daily and this is expected to clear a backlog of samples awaiting tests.
While new cases are being identified daily, Dr. Carpen noted that the main reason for this apart from the increased testing that is ongoing is that persons have become complacent and careless, exposing themselves to COVID-19.
As such, he suggested that there are strategies which the Ministry of Health will be focus on to control community spread and importation of cases. While these strategies will consider preventative steps, the fact that persons have to earn a livelihood will be considered.