A medex is expected to be deployed to the Pomeroon River community of Aka-wini by March and Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton has urged villagers to select two persons residing in the area to be trained as medexes.
The Government Infor-mation Agency (GINA) reported on Saturday that Norton visited the Region Two community on Friday and addressing a large turnout at the village church, he explained that his primary reason for visiting was to deliver on a promise made by President David Granger, who had visited earlier in the year and was informed that there is need for a medex to be stationed at the health centre.
Norton said a medex has already been earmarked and is expected to be deployed by March and he requested that the villagers select two persons residing in the area to be trained as medexes, who can later serve their community.
GINA said the minister also addressed the social issues of teenage pregnancy and substance abuse, noting that these issues are on the rise. He urged the villagers to protect their children and support actions to discipline them for wrongdoing. He said that not because a child may be wayward, he or she has to be taken out of school. There are too many cases of teenage pregnancy, Dr Norton stressed.
He urged the community members to respect each other and allow girls to have a safe childhood. “Let us go back to those days when everybody older than you is uncle and aunty…and every child is a son or daughter…that way we will have a healthy community, and a happy village,” he was quoted as saying.
GINA reported that villagers requested a boat to transport children to and from school even as they argued that it will allow the families to have more control of their children, and girls would not be taken advantage of, by having to stay at a guardian’s house.
Norton gave his commitment to ensuring that this message gets to the Education Minister for a boat to be provided, GINA said.
The minister also used the opportunity to inform the villagers about precautionary measures that should be adopted to prevent vector borne diseases such as Zika and H1N1; advising that chemically treated bed nets are to be used, GINA reported.
