Guyana’s first Spirometry lab was launched yesterday, along with an asthma education programme, at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
Dr Robert Levy of the University of British Columbia, who is spearheading the Guyana Spirometry and Asthma/Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (COPD) Education programme, said that the goal is shift care from hospital beds, to community based care.
Three doctors and two nurses will be trained initially and Dr Levy noted that the programme will start at GPHC and then move out to the clinics where other healthcare providers will be trained.
He said that the approach is to make accurate diagnosis via the Spirometry (pulmonary function) test, which takes only 20 minutes, along with patient education and appropriate medication.
Dr Debra Isaacs, who is a professor with Libin Cardiovascular Institute, University of Calgary, said they will be working at improving education, monitoring and follow-up care for patients.
She furthered mentioned that a chronic diseases registry will be created.
Concern was expressed at the alarming rate of deaths from non-communicable diseases in Guyana and these include heart failure, COPD, chronic kidney disease and diabetes.
Explaining how the Canada-Guyana partnership for healthcare development came about, Dr Levy said it was the result of a meeting where he and Dr Isaacs were talking about organ failure. He said she had a couple of photos and two minutes later they had a deal on doing something about the situation of lung failure in Guyana.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Shamdeo Persaud noted that healthcare must be accessible and at a reasonable cost.
He noted that with capacity and resource building, more patients will be reached.
He also stated, that following a declaration of the Caricom Heads of Governments in 2007 to address non-communicable diseases (NCD), the Ministry of Health, focused on “four main risk factors, smoking, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity [as well as] four diseases in relation to the risk factors, cancer, heart disease and hypertension and chronic respiratory disease.”
Those in attendance were told, however, that the new Spirometry and Asthma Centre will start off with asthma care, then move to the other common chronic diseases.
In addition to Dr Levy and Dr Isaacs, two therapists will also be assisting with training.
The Spirometry lab is located at the first floor of the GPHC AC/DC building, next to the Ear, Nose and Throat Department.