A new family health clinic has been opened at Suddie, Region Two for the improvement of local health care.
The $4M clinic which is housed in the Suddie Public Hospital compound was formally opened last Friday during a visit to the region by Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy and representatives of the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS).
The clinic will offer testing for malaria, filaria, tuberculosis (TB), and HIV, among other infectious diseases and it is staffed by a team of skilled and professional health personnel, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported.
Ramsammy said that Guyana has one of the most comprehensive programmes of providing free health care for everyone for all chronic and infectious diseases.
Over the years there have been significant improvements in the sector, the health minister noted, and the ministry has been able to provide quality anti-natal care and screening for persons living with HIV, filaria, TB and other diseases.
The ministry has progressed a far way in providing testing and treatment, from the days when there was only one testing site and samples had to be sent to Georgetown, Ramsammy observed.
This has changed over the years, he added, as people can be tested and screened anywhere in the country for HIV, TB, filaria, malaria, and other infectious and chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.
The minister said that more will be done to have persons utilise the services and access treatment. GINA stated further that according to statistics, Guyana has more than 2,000 persons living with HIV. While these are treated with anti-retrovirals equally the same number is managed but not treated.
This, the minister said, will change as the ministry is looking to have more persons treated at an earlier stage.
“We want to put people on treatment earlier, so where people had to wait, Guyana is saying that they we will not wait,” Ramsammy is quoted as saying.
Government, GINA said spends approximately $12B annually to provide treatment and care for Guyanese and this comes at great sacrifice and at a time when significant sums have to be spent on services, Ramsammy said.
“We are fortunate to have international partners such as PEPFAR, Global Fund and the World Bank,” he said, adding that these organisations would not be around forever, “but our obligation to treat people will be with us forever.”
He also emphasized that while tremendous work is done focus has to be placed on prevention. The prevalence of AIDS has declined from 3 to 5 percent to between 1 to 1.5 percent. The minister said that by any standards the programme has been successful but “we cannot live on our success, we have to continue to work harder.”
It was also noted, GINA stated, that it is more economical to prevent the disease rather than to treat it and in this regard the health minister said that it cannot be the Ministry of Health’s job alone but it requires a cooperative effort.
He pointed out that stigma and discrimination continue to be a great challenge and urged that this must not prevent persons from getting tested.
