Jerseys NFL China orbby1td
|
|
Jerseys NFL China orbby1td
| …As Health Ministry seeks to fill several fieldsHaving opened its doors to the public in 2009, the Port Mourant Ophthalmology Centre has been delivering a much needed service offered predominantly by Cuban specialists. However, measures are being streamlined to revise this mode of operation, since according to Minister of Health Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, Government is currently looking to train local personnel to staff the facility.Those being targeted for training in this regard are young graduate doctors, most of whom were trained in Cuba, the Minister disclosed during an interview. According to him, the training of these doctors comes at a time when immense consideration is being directed to the fact that “we have probably not been as aggressive as we should have been in analysing the needs of our workforce and the different categories of our workforce.”Health Minister Dr. Bheri Ramsaran“We have a lot of graduate doctors that I like to call ‘Baby Doctors’…they need to grow from graduate doctors into specialists and we are grateful to Cuba for helping us to create a large cadre of graduate doctors.”In the quest to staff the Port Mourant Centre, the Minister said that a few of the graduate doctors have been selected for training in the field of ophthalmology with the assistance of an international Non-Governmental Organisation. Those undergoing training, he disclosed, are currently in the final year of a three-year programme. One doctor who had undergone similar training has since been sent to Linden.“We are doing our part…we have done some work to train a few eye care specialists, but we need to expand and get more of these Guyanese specialists if we are to fully take over the Port Mourant facility. We need to wean ourselves from total dependence on the Cuban specialists, and it is not that we would ever forget them, or that we don’t need their support anymore, but we need to start growing up,” the Minister asserted.He acknowledged that while the Health Ministry might have unfortunately not been aggressive enough, “we are starting to have our doctors specialise in the needed areas”.Ramsaran made reference to the areas of orthopaedics, general surgery, paediatric and emergency medicine, for which graduate doctors are being trained to fill. Post-graduate programmes in these fields are undertaken at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and are guided and supported by international centres of excellences,Jerseys NFL China, he pointed out, while emphasising that “these are not fly-by-night, third world, wishy-washy programmes…it is something that is well thought out, which allows for exchanges of students, and overseas faculties are constantly coming in to guide our young doctors”.He disclosed that the total number of graduate doctors undertaking the courses in the various specialist fields, represent about 99 per cent of those trained in Cuba through the medical cooperation Guyana has with the communist territory.Minister Ramsaran revealed that efforts are also being made to attract the graduates to scholarships programmes in the areas of psychiatry and pathology that have not been traditionally pursued by the ‘Baby Doctors’.He lamented the fact that there are currently a mere two veteran pathologists in the public health system, adding that “one is very old and he comes to me often and says he is tired and he needs help. We have another that is not much younger who is swiftly approaching retirement age”.The shortage of pathologists had just last month caused the Minister to challenge recently registered doctors to take advantage of available scholarship programmes in the area of pathology. He revealed that young doctors accepting the challenge could see the Health Ministry deviating from its administrative regulation which requires that doctors serve at least two-and-a-half years before being eligible for post-graduate scholarships. Doctors who are the product of scholarship programmes awarded by the Government of Guyana are expected to serve the country for a period of five consecutive years throughout the administrative regions.One doctor has since answered the call and has commenced unofficial training in order to function as the understudy of the existing pathologists. However, Minister Ramsaran revealed that plans are in the pipeline to have the young doctor undergo formal training at a recognised university shortly.“We have to look at our various sources, such as Cuba or India, but we have to look at where it will be most cost-effective…the cost of these programmes in some countries are humongous.”As a result, the Minister said that sourcing of the relevant universities will require the intervention of not only the Public Service Ministry but also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other international support agencies, to leverage such opportunities. Dr. Ramsaran disclosed too that President Ramotar during a recent visit to Cuba was expected to explore the possibility by engaging discussions with officials there. |
|
|
|
|
|
