Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy this morning flayed international health organizations for, according to him, using wrong data to compile reports about Guyana and he threatened to not accept reports in the future if the organizations do not use the data tabulated locally.
Saying that he was not angry, the minister told a seminar that PAHO/WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA while being good partners have been “absolutely unfair to the country of Guyana.”
“It is one thing to say to health workers that we have a formula and it is the formula that we would follow. To hell with the data that you have!,” a very angry sounding minister said during his speech at the two-day caucus being held at the Regency Hotel on maternal and child health.
“As of next week I am calling everybody , because the disregard for Guyana must stop now. I would not accept another publication that comes out with data that never applied to this country, never applies,” the minister said.
“I have been working in the public sector in this country and I never know in all my tenure that 75 women died of child birth in Guyana, I never know,” the minister said adding that in the country’s worst days it never happened.
As the minister continued his attack PAHO/WHO’s Country Representative Dr Beverly Darnett and UNFPA’s representative Dervin Patrick both looked shocked. Two other representatives from international agencies also looked perplexed but they all paid rapt attention to the minister.
Ramsammy said as the health minister he knows about every pregnancy death that occurs in Guyana. He knows about it in 24 hours. He said no formula devised in Geneva, Switzerland where the WHO is based, is better than what he knows on the ground while adding that his health workers work hard.
He said if a problem with the data is detected by the organizations then “come and show me.”
“I work with the representatives of the organizations in this country, they dispute the data and I say to them ‘show me what, show me what’ and until you can do that use my data, use my data,” the minister declared.
He urged the organizations not to disrespect and demoralize the health workers in Guyana as they deserve better.