Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has said that the Government of Guyana is strengthening partnerships with leading global health institutions as part of its ongoing efforts to improve cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment in the country.
He made the remarks on Wednesday, during the launch of Pinktober, an annual, month-long observance held every October to raise awareness about cancers across the country.
“We have a very strong partnership with Mount Sinai; we’re benefitting from their experience. We have another partnership with Northwell, and these are two global institutions that have been first-class in how they manage patients with cancer, and more recently we also developed a partnership with MD Anderson, and they came down, and they were working with the team so that we can perfect what we’re doing in terms of cervical cancer. They’ve helped us to reorganise and so forth. So, we’re working with some of the best institutions in the world to help us to beat cancer here in Guyana,” the health minister said.
He highlighted that the Government also has a strong partnership with McMaster University.
“They have been going back and forth with us; they come down, they bring teams, and they work with us,” he noted.
He added that the Government has developed a “good partnership” with the National Cancer Institute of India.
“They sent down a team, and we’re going to expand a lot of the work that we’re doing with them. They’re willing to train local people; they’re gonna bring people from India to work with the local team, expand training for persons, whether nurses, doctors, and they’re also gonna take people from here to India to train at their institutions. So, that partnership is ongoing. And there are patients who would have various complications; they’ve been taking some of our patients too and managing them in India,” he outlined.
Most recently, Dr Anthony said the Government has partnered with France through the European Union.
“We now have a partnership with Agency France, and they have a project with us called HealthNext, and with HealthNext we have been bringing a lot French expertise to Guyana, and our intention is to send some people out to France to be trained, and among the institutions that have been working with us is the Marie Curie Institute, as you know, that’s one of the top institutes dealing with cancer, and they’re now one of the partners we’ve been working with. Just recently, about two weeks ago, we had a doctor from Toulouse that came in and was working with our team to look at cancers in gynaecology, and so they would be structuring a programme and coming back and doing a lot of training and teaching and so forth,” the health minister explained.
For the year so far, 704 persons have been diagnosed with various forms of cancer. Prostate, breast, cervical and colorectal represent a combined 46 per cent of those diagnoses.
Anthony emphasised that the Government is working to improve citizens’ access to screening, strengthen diagnostic services, and expand available treatment options.
“We’re don’t just know that you have a problem and not do anything about it. We’ve been taking a lot of proactive measures, and we continue to expand what we are doing, and we’re working with different partners to create different options,” he noted.
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