Preliminary assessment completed on infectious diseases hospital

-orders already placed for equipment

The team tasked with conducting a preliminary assessment on the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention at Liliendaal has completed the commission, paving the way for the facility to be outfitted with the relevant medical equipment.

Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony said the Government is hoping to get the facility up and running as soon as possible. However, most of the equipment needed would have to be imported.

“We are working with the supplier to be able to bring that into Guyana,” Dr. Anthony told DPI.

The Minister said the order has already gone out.

“We want to equip [it] to make sure it functions like a hospital and we have ordered all the equipment to ensure we have diagnostic facilities … that we will be able to set up an ICU. We are looking at 29 ICU beds there. We have a theatre there that we want to equip as well so that if there is any need for us to operate on anybody, we’ll have the conditions there to do that,” Dr. Anthony said.  

Additionally, the installation of medical gas supply lines which is needed for the ICU, would begin soon. 

Apart from this, Dr. Anthony said approximately 21 ventilators should arrive in Guyana by next week. These machines are specifically for the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) – Infectious Diseases Intensive Care Unit and other regional health facilities.

“We had placed an order to bring in ventilators because one of the big challenges with COVID-19 patients is that they would need ventilation and therefore ventilators become one of the necessities. We will be adding some more to GPHC and sending the rest to different regional hospitals. The [Indian Government] had given us US$ 1 million and we used part of the money to buy 21 ventilators,” Dr. Anthony explained.

The first five ventilators which arrived in Guyana early last month were installed at the GPHC.  The Government was also awaiting the arrival of personnel from Canada to certify its biohazard cabinets. These cabinets are the primary containment barriers used when working with infectious agents.

Once the cabinets are certified the hospital’s testing capacity, especially for COVID-19 will increase tremendously, the Minister said.