Dear Editor,
Reference is made to Mr Hamilton Green’s missive ‘Questions abound about this specialist hospital’(SN, Dec 29) regarding the establishment of a much needed specialty hospital to perform high-tech surgeries in our country. Such a hospital, as I understand its objective, is to make it possible for surgeries that are performed overseas to be now done in Guyana. So its need cannot be doubted. Some of Mr Green’s questions are inappropriate and hark back to old discarded memories of a terrible period in our history.
As I understand it, this hospital is not a secret. Mention of this hospital was made by former President Jagdeo some time early in the year. I read about it in the papers. I recollect also the President making a trip to India to get the Indian government’s approval and funding and technical expertise for its construction and staffing.I reported on this matter for the newspapers in Guyana and NY when the former President announced the project to Guyanese in New York on several trips to lure them to return home to help with development. I am no medical practitioner although I was trained as a biochemist. But I do not think the facilities we have in Guyana can be upgraded to provide the kind of medical service the former President announced to the nation. Thus, Mr Green’s suggestion to examine current facilities for upgrading or cooperation (considering the government’s objective in medicine), lack merit.
Mr Greene said the hospital raises troubling questions in the proposed association of the hospital with India. People I have spoken with overseas and in Guyana find his comments troubling as he harked back to the period of the early 1960s making reference to India hinting (at a myth) that the PPP somehow wanted to make Guyana a colony of India. Mr Green penned: “What is now troubling, is … this hospital will be staffed entirely by nationals from India, so what is going on?”
I have not seen a report or a statement from Dr Roger Luncheon that the hospital will be staffed entirely (exclusively) by Indian nationals. People tend to speak generally. So, for example, when analysts say the PNC is an African party, it does not mean that the PNC or APNU does not get any support from Amerindians or Indians. I doubt the new hospital will not employ any Guyanese.
Mr Green penned: “We obtained independence in 1966. Is this move some sort of recolonization?” No form of logic can lead to such a conclusion.
India built the Providence Stadium. Has it led to recolonization? India is Guyana’s largest donor of aid and has been for years – where is the recolonization? Mr Green has forgotten that India gave the PNC government tens of millions of dollars in aid (has he forgotten the Tata buses and the hundreds of tractors, etc) – did this lead to recolonization?
The proposed hospital can in no way bring large numbers of people from India to Guyana – only those required to manage the hospital and to perform the high-tech surgeries.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
