Another $100M is allocated for upgrades to health centers across region six. This is according to the Minister of Health who also disclosed that three new health centers are also to be constructed in the region to extend health care delivery and make it more accessible to residents in the region.
The Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony who was at the time speaking at the commissioning of the new outpatient department at the Port Mourant Hospital at the weekend, said that the money will be used to do minor repairs to health centers such as constructions of sheds, washroom facilities, along with other resources that are need at the existing health centers across region six.
He said the Regional Democratic Council is already in receipt of the funds to ensure those type of repairs are done.
Additionally, he said three new health will be constructed in the region: one at Chesney on the Corentyne, Gangaram in East Canje and another in Mara on the East Bank of Berbice. This is an effort by the Government to extend health care services so that it becomes more accessible to citizens.
“For many year’s places like Gangaram did not have services they would need to go to neighboring community and so we are ensuring that they would be able to get service closer to them and to the community. The construction will start within a month they would have a specific period to complete that construction.” He added.
The Health Minister noted with the new facilities across the region and the construction of new hospitals in region, there will be need for more persons to be trained in the medical field.
He said annually, the medical field would require over 1000 trained professionals to work in the field and as such, a modern training institute will be established in the region with dorms.
“While we are doing these types of extension the big challenge here is to get more people into nursing and we have been constantly trying to recruit more people into nursing because we just need more staff in these various institutions and we don’t want to take any and everybody we want them to be trained.”
He said the get into the various training programme, persons must have math and English. However, systems will be put in place through the Guyana Online Academy of Learning to acquire the SCQF certificate and then transitioned into the nursing programme.
