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Govt. aggressively pursuing digitizing of health sector – Pres. Ali
Kaieteur News-Guyana’s healthcare system will be digitally incorporated with international specialty services from the United States of America (U.S.) and India, President Irfaan Ali has announced.
The President made this disclosure during the sod-turning ceremony of the new $11.4 billion West Demerara Hospital in Region Three on Friday.
President Irfaan Ali
The Head-of-State was at the time speaking of his vision to provide a world-class healthcare system for all Guyanese.
“There are some very important concepts in healthcare that we must understand in building this world-class healthcare system,” he said.
Speaking of this new development, the President shared that currently in Region Three there are 38 health facilities (centres and posts) outside of the hospitals that operate in silos.
“There is no connectivity,” he declared.
He noted that due to the lack of connectivity there is no diagnostic and lab capability and capacity to support the treatment of patients. The president said that his government, through the ministry of health is working to ensure that every patient has equal access to health care.
“…that is what we are targeting, building these facilities so that there is an equitable bases line access of healthcare access across the board,” he said.
The head-of-state said that building these better facilities like that at De Kinderen and, the new West Demerara Hospital, Region Three will be well integrated.
“An integrated health management and patient management system through digital health and digitization,” President Ali said is his government’s intention. He explained that, for example, at the new West Demerara Hospital, there will be a control room that integrates all the health centres and health posts and the hospital on a common platform. All the doctors will be available on the said platform.
“But more importantly that platform will be linked into the national platform in Georgetown and all the other regions and then we have already negotiated for this platform to be integrated into the Northwell (Northwell Health in New York) platform, Mount Sinai platform and now some of the best providers in India,” the president elaborated.
He said too that the digital integration will also allow for specialty medical services to be expanded across the country.
“We will be integrated into the global healthcare system, and we will be able to pool all our medical talent on one platform. So, wherever that talent is needed whether in the private sector or public sector because the platform must be national and all the services must be on that platform because we are investing to give people these specialty services and that platform can be available 24/7, imagine what that will do for healthcare,” the president added.
Meanwhile, President Ali said that the government is in talks with international partners to have rehabilitative care provided. He said, “many times beds are occupied in hospitals; space is occupied whereby the patient does not necessarily need to be in that hospital but require rehabilitative care. Very soon in April a team is coming down from Mount Sinai to discuss with us a modular manner in which we can build out our rehabilitative care centres in our country.”
On Friday, President Ali also announced that “Hess Corporation has agreed to continue financing the Mount Sinai partnership for another three years.”
Kaieteur News had reported in 2022 that Hess provided US$32 million that went toward a multi-year (three-year) national healthcare initiative, in collaboration with the New York-based, Mount Sinai Health System.
The initiative was aimed at improving the quality of, and access to healthcare for the people of Guyana. It was reported that the government would be working with the Mount Sinai team who will advise and help develop high-quality primary care, specialised services in cardiology and oncology, and significant improvements at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
Through their collaboration, the Head-of-State said that Mount Sinai will be helping Guyana build a modern Oncology Centre to treat cancer.
This newspaper understands that the construction of that facility will begin during this year.
(Govt. aggressively pursuing digitizing of health sector – Pres. Ali)
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