Guyana: Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, attended the opening ceremony of a three-day conference for the Regional Health Officers (RHO’s) from the ten (10) administrative regions across Guyana at the Grand Coastal Hotel.
This conference will see the RHO’s, over the three days, discussing various approaches between the Ministry of Health and its health care partners to effectively and efficiently deliver health care services across Guyana.
During his feature address, the Minister of Health encouraged the RHOs to be more proactive when it comes to managing infrastructure projects within the various parts of the regions, and when procuring equipment.
He explained that appropriate equipment should be purchased for facilities in which they will be suitable and sustainable, and when they are received, a maintenance plan should be implemented to ensure that they are being serviced promptly.
Dr Anthony advocated for the development of a Laboratory Strategy to be utilised at both a regional and national level when offering healthcare services.
“….we can develop a National Laboratory Strategy which will indicate what we should offer nationality and what we should offer in each region, and how we’ll offer them. Based on this, we’ll know what equipment needs to be purchased and what are the gaps in the regions, and if we have overcapacity in the region we’ll know how to deal with them”, he explained.
Minister Anthony went on to emphasise the need for appropriate programmes and activities to be implemented to advocate and raise awareness against diseases to impact behaviour change.
“If we take cervical cancer, for instance, this is something preventable but how many regions have a comprehensive program to do HPV vaccination? How are we going to make an impact on cervical cancer if we are not integrating HPV vaccination in the services provided”, he said.
The Minister also spoke extensively on the need for decentralisation of all training programmes across Guyana to expand its human resource capacity.
“Let’s map out the need for human resources in each region and how we work to ensure that we’re adding systematic development in the areas”, he advised.
Dr Anthony also mentioned that soon the Ministry will be implementing Physician Leadership Programme where physicians can offer leadership, along with Electronic Health Records that will aid in better serving health care services throughout Guyana.
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