Transportation is vital in interior locations

Feb 03, 2013 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

By Valerie Garrido-Lowe
Member of Parliament

Almost every day on NCN, viewers are treated to sceneries from the various Amerindian villages and loads of information on all the good things this Government has done and is doing for the Amerindians throughout the hinterland, and how they are so much better off under the PPP/C.
Yet, is Rosalind Stephen, a young Amerindian mother, better off? According to her father, “… now at least she gone”. Rosalind suffered so much before she died that in death she may very well be better off.
Because of the remoteness of the villages in Guyana’s vast interior, transportation has always been a problem to residents.
Transportation is especially needed to carry the sick in emergency cases to the nearest hospital for treatment which, in most cases, is a matter of life and death.
And not just any transportation is needed… certainly not a motorbike to transport a woman about to deliver her baby and hemorrhaging profusely, as in the case of Rosalind Stephen from Parishara in Region 9.
Journalist, Gaulbert Sutherland, in Stabroek News dated January 28, 2013, mentioned that Mr. Brutus Stephen, Rosalind’s father, has been pleading with the relevant Ministers of the Government for transportation to be made available to patients for a long time and while promises were made, unto this day, Nappi, Parishara and Hiowa have not received transportation as yet, not even for the medical outpost.
This is the story of many villages and it is a shame. How many more of our hinterland brothers and sisters have to die before each village is provided with proper transportation?
Both Rosalind of Parishara and Euphemia Francis of Nappi did not have to die; they could have had a chance to live if the village or the health post had possessed a suitable vehicle.
The Government knows how vital transportation is to residents of the hinterland.
Besides saving lives from snake bites, malaria, dengue, maternal and other complications, accidents caused by falling trees and attacks from jaguars, it is also needed to uplift teachers’ salaries every month, to transport village produce to main market areas like Lethem, to transport athletes to compete in the inter-school and inter-branch sports and to transport students attending the secondary schools in Lethem and other villages. (I remember walking fourteen miles from Achawib to Karaudanau to board the Guyana Airways plane from Lumidpau to fly to Georgetown to attend high school when I was just a little girl).
With the World Bank just releasing money from the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), and the signing of the necessary agreements, Amerindian communities are supposed to benefit from the LCDS monies from Norway, hence, on behalf of my Amerindian brothers and sisters, I am asking our Government to make sure that monies are made available to purchase appropriate transportation for each village that does not have. Or, if the proposals that were submitted to the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs from the various villages under the GRIF do not include transportation, then other funds should be made available to do so.
How can other funds be made available? The 2006 Amerindian Act states that the “Guyana Geology and Mines Commission shall transfer twenty percent of the royalties from the mining activities to a fund designated by the Minister for the benefit of Ameridnian villages”.
Therefore, one would naturally deduct, judging from the amount of mining being carried out on Amerindian lands, that this crock pot would always keep boiling, so footing the bill for village vehicles should pose no great problem.
Added to that, Government must look into providing the necessary training in the fields of auto mechanical and auto electrical/engineering for young men of the villages, so that they will have the knowledge to repair their vehicles when they are broken down.
This is where a technical school is needed in Region 9, more so in preparation for the jobs that would be available with the opening of the Linden-Lethem highway which seems to be taking forever to initiate but, hopefully, is still on the cards for our country’s development. I must say it is rather ambiguous which end is causing the delay, however, if it ever comes to pass, residents of villages in Region 9 must be prepared to access these jobs.
And, for the health and wellness of our people, it is necessary to have well trained medical staff, even in a little health post in a remote hinterland area. Long ago, health posts in remote areas had qualified midwives and well trained dispensers.
What is the problem now? Last year in Parliament I asked some written questions of the Minister of Health concerning the dismal state of the Georgetown School of Nursing which he did not answer until after several months – and that is after he tried to rectify some of the faulty situations I had highlighted.
I must commend him for this, given that the students did benefit from his intervention.
However, more clinical instructors are still needed to supervise the students, and this is of utmost importance considering, after graduation, some of them are sent to remote outposts where they work unsupervised and residents become virtual guinea pigs until the self-supervised internship is completed!
As a nation we can do better, but we must first think better. Our Government has to think and do better… but first they have to care.
On behalf of the Alliance For Change I extend heartfelt condolences to the family and relatives of Rosalind Stephen and the family and relatives of Euphemia Francis. May they rest in peace.