Health Minister to pay vector control staff from his salary

Feb 15, 2009 News

The Ministry of Health has issued an urgent advisory to residents in Regions Four and Nine, as there is an increase in the number of dengue cases in the areas of Georgetown and Lethem, along with the lesser part of the East Coast of Demerara.

So far for the year, 115 dengue cases have been recorded, as opposed to 60 for last year.
It is not clear if people have died from the infection, but according to Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, the ministry is investigating the death of an individual whom it is suspected died of haemorrhagic dengue, the worst type of this infection.

At a press conference held at the minister’s office on Friday, Dr. Ramsammy refused to reveal if the infection is from Guyana or if it was imported.

However, he did state that one of the challenges the ministry is faced with is the constant movement of people from neighbouring countries where dengue is present.
The dengue that is present in Guyana is usually the mild form, which according to Dr. Ramsammy will not be forever.

He added that haemorrhagic dengue is present in other countries, and since that is the case, it will enter Guyana; and unless the ministry does deal with the vector issue, there will be a major problem.
Some of the cases recorded thus far were imported, but a figure could not be given, since the ministry has not been able to confirm all of them.

It was noted that the first case of dengue was recorded on New Year’s Day. Minister Ramsammy stressed the point that there is no outbreak in Guyana, as there is no crisis situation, but he is concerned with the increasing number of cases.

“For me, the fact that there is an increasing number is enough for us to act; and so we are going to be taking various actions, including fogging in the epicentre areas.”

In an effort to deal with the situation, the Ministry of Health will tomorrow commence fogging in Georgetown, and then proceed to the East Coast of Demerara, and continue on to Region Nine and then to the East Bank Demerara.

According to Minister Ramsammy, since the restructured policies have been implemented, there have been some disruptions with the vector control staff.

He explained that fogging has always been done as an additional activity. As such, the ministry cannot hire a permanent staff. To facilitate the process, the ministry had used the vector control staff for the activity, and they were paid a duty allowance by way of the overtime mechanism.

This overtime has since been removed, and as such the workers have refused to do the extra activity (fogging), since they would not be paid for it.

In order to deal with the issue, Minister Ramsammy has promised to solve the problem. But in the few weeks while the issue is being resolved, the minister has committed to pay the workers the allowance from his salary, so that they can get the process going.

“I have promised everyone that I’m not going to ask for a refund, because I don’t want what happened to me in 2001, when I did this, and there was a scandal that I was taking money from the sector.
“It was exactly the same situation where I was helping out people who had to wait three or four months for their pay, and then when I requested my refund, it was placed as if I took money for personal matters.”

When asked why the ministry chose to do the fogging exercise on Monday instead of earlier, Minister Ramsammy explained that the exercise should have commenced two weeks ago, but that the ministry is currently facing the difficulty of personnel issues, due to new Government policies that have been implemented to prevent the abuse of overtime at the ministry.