Minister of Public Health, Dr George Norton says that to bring the present rate of maternal, child and infant mortality down the country needs to break from its dependence on foreign specialists and instead train more Guyanese doctors in obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics.
“We can only bring down that maternal mortality rate, that child and infant mortality down when we have Guyanese paediatricians, Guyanese Gynae Obs specialists working in our institutions. That is when we are going to bring it down to a level” far below where it is at the moment, the Minister said while delivering the charge at the graduation ceremony of the 2015 batch of Cuban-trained Guyanese medical doctors.
The ceremony, which was held at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre on Saturday saw 93 new doctors take the Hippocratic/physician’s oath and receiving their assignments to various medical institutions around the country. Fourteen doctors have been assigned positions in New Amsterdam, fourteen on the West Demerara, 10 in Suddie, eight in Linden and 46 at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
The minister noted that in an attempt to satisfy the need for specialists in the Guyanese health sector and stave off the migration of doctors, the APNU+AFC government is prepared to allow the new doctors to begin postgraduate training during their five-year service bond. Previously, Guyana/Cuba scholarship recipients were required to work as general practitioners in the health sector for five years before being allowed to pursue specialist training.
Norton however noted that “The need for higher training in clinical areas, in post-graduate certification, in the clinical specialties is becoming more pressing here in Guyana because of the continuing migration of doctors seeking, among other things, postgraduate training in the first instance.”
He added that “We have so many graduate General Medical Officers, the University of Guyana (UG) is here to stay, especially the School of Medicine. I would prefer for us to invite specialist doctors from abroad to come as Professors at the University.”
Doctor Norton who is himself Cuban-trained, said that before 2006 when the University of Guyana began offering postgraduate training in medicine, doctors would stay on average one year to eighteen months in Guyana after their bond ended. With the offer of postgraduate training doctors are now remaining in Guyana to practise for an average of five years.
He explained to the doctors gathered that there are several options for postgraduate medical training right here at the University of Guyana. UG presently offers specialist training in surgery, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, internal medicine, orthopaedics, anaesthesia, and family medicine. The minister also mentioned that Masters degrees in Psychiatry and Public Health will soon be available at the institution.
“We might not yet have the best but it is there for you to make the best of it,” he told the new doctors.
The Minister further explained that seeking specialist training does not preclude the doctors from offering their contracted five years of service to the country.
“Residency education is essentially training on the job. Doctors are engaged in service delivery while training and this service delivery is similar to that which is provided by a Government Medical Officer but in the case of residency you have greater accountability and supervision and this you do as you progress upwards in your training programmes, increasing your knowledge and skills- that is what I support,” he said.
Also speaking at the graduation ceremony were Dr. Midalys Otero, Head of the Cuban Medical Brigade, the Cuban Ambassador to Guyana Julio Cesar Gonzalez Marchante and Minister of State Joseph Harmon who delivered the feature address.
The ambassador urged the graduates not to “lose the honourable opportunity your homeland Guyana offered you to join the goal of creating a better and healthy country for all,” adding, “your country needs you and trusts in you.”
Meanwhile, Harmon lauded the Cuban scholarship programme as a legacy of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration which the new government is “proud to have inherited.”
He further expressed the hope that when his government hands over the programme to another administration “in many, many years to come, that [they] will be able to hand over a programme that is even stronger than the one [they] took over.”
Harmon has responsibility for the Department of Public Service, formerly the Public Service Ministry which granted the students their scholarships in 2008.
The present scholarship agreement which was signed between Guyana and Cuba in 2000 has so far provided training for more than 500 Guyanese doctors. Previously, the doctors completed seven years of training in Cuba but since 2002, the medical students conclude their seventh year of training serving as interns under the instruction of members of the Cuban Medical Brigade.
