After mounting criticism and pressure from various stakeholders over the fact that the results from the COVID-19 tests are being sent to caretaker Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence instead of going back to the doctors, who are treating the patients, the situation has seen improvements.
This is according to Chairman of the Guyana Medical Council, Dr Navindranauth Rambaran. He told INews on Wednesday, “My feedback from commissioners is that is has certainly improved.”
Dr Rambaran had said that the Council wrote Lawrence on Monday, “raising concerns about the delay in the return of results to the doctors and we asked that she look into that.”
According to the Chairman, the letter to Lawrence was not crafted for a response to the Council. In fact, he noted that that the response they are seeking is for actions to be taken and this has been done with the test results now being made available directly to the doctors.
Last weekend, Dr Frank Anthony, a former Government minister and a doctor himself, had condemned the involvement of the minister in the process. A part from the fact that the minister is not a medical professional, he noted that the delays of the results getting back to the doctors, which is sometimes 48 hours, endangered the lives of not only the patients but the medical staff as well.
According to Dr Anthony, it makes a big difference when the medical staff knows about the status of the patients they are dealing with.
Meanwhile, Dr Vindhya Persaud, a former opposition parliamentarian, had also weighed in on the situation regarding the results, saying it is not only disturbing but completely unacceptable.
In a social media post, Dr Persaud argued that “This clamp down attitude is endangering healthcare workers and delaying the care that patients may need based on test results… this is not politics, this is life!”
