-Ramsammy

Guyana hopes to do its first kidney transplant locally within the next month, Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy says.

He made the revelation while speaking at the commissioning of the Intensive Care Unit of the New Amsterdam Public Hospital last Friday.   “Guyana hopes to accomplish its first kidney transplant in June this year, a few weeks from now”, the minister said.

Stabroek News was unable to elicit further details from Dr. Ramsammy yesterday. If accomplished it would be another major stride in the health sector which recently saw open-heart surgery being done here.

During his address at New Amsterdam Dr. Ramsammy had stated that Guyana must continue to build its health care service and noted that many health care services were lacking locally and persons had to leave the country to access these services and as a result many became severely sick, disabled or unfortunately die.

He added that the government has come a far way because they did not set limits and while the ministry aims to do the limited services well, they also want to ensure that persons had less reason to leave Guyana for health care services. He also mentioned that to provide the desired health care services in Guyana it would cost the government $20B but only $12B has been allocated to the health sector while people pay about $3B to the private health sector amounting to $15B overall, leaving a gap of $5B.