Seven overseas-based Guyanese medical specialists and surgeons attached to a New Jersey-based outreach organisation hosted a free clinic and conducted 39 surgeries during a week-long exercise at the West Demerara Regional Hospital.
According to a press release, the exercise was hosted by the Fyrish, Gibraltar, Courtland Overseas Support Group and was led by Fyrish, Corentyne born Dr James Cort. Dr Cort, a specialist in internal medicine, has been travelling here twice per year over the past four years to host free clinics for adults and children in Berbice. He returns to Fyrish in April and October every year accompanied by colleagues from the East Orange, Beth Israel, St Barnabas and Clara Mass medical centres and others based in boroughs in the US Tri-State area.
In October, Cort was accompanied by a specialist team attached to the 15-year-old Caribbean Medical Association (CMA) under the leadership of General Practitioner Dr Berman Saunders, who is also a founder member. This team included General Surgeon Dr Lennox Alves and Paediatrician Dr Sandrine Miller who both hail from Mahaica, Urologist Dr George Johnson, a native of Pouderoyen; Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr Ronald Daly who is originally from Kingston, Georgetown and Gynaecologist/Oncologist Dr Patrick Anderson, a General Surgeon from Jamaica.
The team conducted clinics over four days in the Upper Corentyne for residents of Fyrish, Gibraltar, Courtland and surrounding communities and at Belladrum, West Demerara. They also performed a significant number of surgeries at the New Amsterdam hospital and at the West Demerara hospital on October 25. The release said both in and out patients travelled long distances, some from as far away as Linden, the East Bank Demerara, riverain communities along the Berbice River and from the Essequibo Coast and islands to attend the clinics. Dr Berman noted that the most prevalent ailments were symptoms of lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and tumours that mass data have found to be prevalent in under-developed and developing countries.
Dr Cort has personally adopted the Fyrish Health Centre and has started on ongoing programme with medics and ancillary staff to implement patient education programmes and provide full medical care for people who utilise the Centre’s services. “It is important that we work in tandem with the staff who are based here,” he said, explaining that he makes time to conduct training programmes and exchange ideas with the clinic’s staff because they are the ones who must continue patient treatment in between his bi-annual visits.
The Centre has reported an appreciable downward trend in the incidences of lifestyle diseases. Using a template designed some years ago by Dr Cort which is similar to the laboratory and examination technologies used in modern hospitals in the developed world, the ancillary staff have noticed that cholesterol levels on a broad scale have dropped and that there are fewer cases of critical illnesses related to hypertension and diabetes. The template has also allowed staff to gauge each patient’s progress based on the treatments and medication that they have been treated with over stipulated periods. Dr Cort was also pleased to find that the local medical community uses the same medicines as those available in the USA, which, he says, makes it easier to select.
