The Ministry of Health today launched a biomedical programme aimed at ensuring functioning equipment at hospitals countrywide through the training locals.
The programme is a collaborative effort between the Health Ministry, Public Service Ministry and Medical Aid International, where individuals were drawn from all across the country to be trained and later placed as full-time employees at health facilities.
At the launch on Friday, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony shared that there are many instances where equipment are broken and there is significant downtime.
“When the instruments go down, there is nobody to fix them and that has become a really big problem for us. When we have a few people in Georgetown, if something goes wrong in one of the regions, you have to wait until somebody get out into the region to help fix some of these things. It doesn’t take hours. It would take weeks and months for somebody to be able to get out there.”
“We want to change that. That is why when we were selecting people, we ensured that in every region of Guyana, we have people. In this first cohort of students, we have identified people in all of the major hospitals.”
In the past, heavy emphasis was placed in having adequate human resources to handle patients but having realized the importance of biomedical technicians and engineers, the focus has been expanded.
Dr Anthony shared that least one person should be present in every health facility but more importantly, the Ministry is carving out a career path which persons can build on. Some of these individuals are already employed by the Ministry.
Meanwhile, Advisor to the Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy said the biomedical landscape is changing in Guyana. Without technology, he added that the quality of healthcare desired cannot be achieved.
“We can’t provide the high quality of care that we’re talking about unless we have our biomedical engineers. There was a time when we ran this sector with just people and their knowledge. We had very few pieces of equipment. That is changing in Guyana.
