The Ministry of Public Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Security by year end will be rolling out the first phase of an emergency medical services project which will see a drastic improvement in the response time and transport of injured persons to the hospital.
This is according to Minister of State Joseph Harmon who on Wednesday said during a post cabinet press briefing that this will require additional ambulances, equipment and training.
He informed that at Tuesday’s meeting Cabinet was briefed by the team. He said that a presentation made dealt with the country’s emergency medical services and the response to same.
Harmon informed that the plan outlines that within fifteen minutes of a report being made to the emergency medical services, the patient will be picked up and taken to a medical facility.
“Over time we hope that we could reduce that time frame but initially the project is going to be dealing with Region 4 (along the coast where 80% of the population resides) and later to other areas”, he said adding that this project builds on the “current arrangement which we had for medical evacuation from the hinterland and along the riverain area and the plan envisions the compilation of these assets into one medical response system that will benefit the Guyanese people by and large”.
He later acknowledged that the emergency medical services is “not where it should be”. He said that the first phase includes the provision of additional ambulances, training of emergency medical nurses (this will be the first training of the type in the Caribbean) and additionally facilities in the ambulances, water taxis and aircraft that will be used to transport patients.
“The first phase of this thing has already commenced…it is piggybacking on what is already there … by December 2016 we hope to have the first phase in operation and going onwards to 2020, the other phases which will capture the entire country in an emergency system”.
