The capacity of the University of Guyana (UG) health sciences faculty has received a boost through sustained provision of assistance under the Canadian International Development Agency’s funded Public Health Strengthening in Guyana Project (PHSG).
The PHSG’s focus has been on capacity building to improve public health surveillance and health promotion, health personnel training, strengthening community health care and the development of a national health information system.
The project has also been building the capacity of local health educational institutions and programmes through the development of the curricula and it is in this regard that it has collaborated with UG which has now benefited in areas of human resource development and infrastructural strengthening.
Coupled with the development of a novel course for training students in the health faculty in the area of HIV/AIDS and STI infections, the faculty had also benefited from a refurbished student resource centre and a refurbished and well-equipped laboratory.
The project has also supported research and presentation of original research papers by nursing students at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Health Research Council over the past three years.
Yesterday the achievements made under the collaboration were recognized at a simple ceremony held at the resource centre at the faculty.
Present were Head of the Canadian High Commission, Head of Aid Mark Mostovac who underscored the point that CIDA recognition was not as important as the achievements which have been made over the course of the project, lauding it as very successful.
Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Hydar Ally also witnessed the handing over and in brief remarks stated that the ministry welcomed the contribution which he said was significant to the country’s health sector.
During the ceremony too Dr. Marilyn Cox, head of the UG’s Resource Mobilization Unit expressed gratitude for the assistance the faculty was given over the years and she received a quantity of medical books, encyclopedias and journals as part of the assistance under the project.
Staff and students of the faculty have over the years benefited from workshops, seminars and training presented by PHSG in areas of gender sensitivity issues and HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and STI laboratory techniques, opportunistic infection of HIV/AIDS patients, curriculum development and training.
