Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 22, 2019 News
Halfway through the year, the public health sector was only able to expend $1B of $4.4B allocated towards capital investments. This was owing to delays in the procurement process faced by the Ministry of Public Health, a state of affairs that has been outlined in government’s mid-year report which was released last week.
But measures are already being put in place to remedy this shortcoming, government has assured, stating in the report that, “This situation is expected to improve considerably in the second half of 2019, since all infrastructure-related projects have been advertised.”
A sum of $16.7B of the $35.9B budgeted for the health sector was expended in the first half of 2019 as part of government’s effort to improve the delivery of health care.
It is improved health care delivery quest, during the first half of the year, government said that it spent $3.8B, or 49 percent of the $7.8B budgeted for the procurement of drugs and medical supplies. This represented a 22.7 percent increase over the same period in 2018.
Drugs and medical supplies make up approximately 21.7 percent of the national health sector budget. However, persistent issues of drug shortages have led to a review of the essential medicines’ list, in order to improve quantification of the demand for drugs and medical supplies at healthcare facilities across Guyana.
“This exercise has almost been completed and will be used to better inform government on purchases of drugs and medical supplies,” the report outlined, adding that, “In addition to increasing the storage space, the distribution network for these supplies has been strengthened with the recruitment of nine pharmacy support personnel to coordinate and facilitate the distribution to the Regions.”
Also detailed in the report is the fact that a total of $713.9M was expended on the maintenance and construction of buildings for the health sector, as government continued its drive to upgrade and modernise healthcare facilities nationally. Of that amount, the sum of $455.3M was spent on capital Infrastructure works, of which $40.6M was expended on the upgrade of the doctors’ quarters in Georgetown, Lethem, Kaikan, Leguan, Kamarang, New Amsterdam, Ituni, Wiruni and Mabaruma.
During the first half of the year too, funds were directed towards the advancement of construction works on a new laboratory for the Food and Drug Analyst Department. The scope of this project, government revealed, has been broadened to include an administration complex.
In fact, the selection of a suitably qualified consultant to supervise the project is anticipated to be completed by the end of the year, with final designs and construction expected to commence soon thereafter.
The report also gives account of government’s move to increase and improve temperature-controlled storage facilities, which saw a new, state-of-the-art drug storage bond for the Central Supplies Unit at Kingston being commissioned to the tune of almost $540M.
At the same time, the extension of the bond for the Material Management Unit at
Diamond was completed at a cost of $116M. These facilities have since increased the floor space for storage by over 1,900 square feet and will be central in the distribution network for drugs and medical supplies.
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Apr 19, 2024
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