As residents of Baramita, Region 1 continue to face an issue with the delay of drugs reaching the community, there is a call for supplies to be taken there directly.
Haliema Khan, a commissioner with the Women & Gender Equality Commission (WGEC), with responsibility for that community, said there is a “bottle-neck” as the drugs first have to “go through the RHO [Regional Health Officer] at Mabaruma.”
That system, she said, is resulting in poor health services being provided even though the area has a doctor, a medex and a community health worker.
She said the drugs and other medical supplies are sent there very late and as such, the commission is asking that they be flown directly to Baramita so as to avoid the shortage. According to her, a regular air service goes into Baramita three times per week: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the authorities should use it for that purpose.
Khan also told the media at a press conference, that the elderly residents of Baramita have an issue with getting their pension because they only have the “red ID card.”
Chairperson of the WGEC, Indra Chandarpal told reporters that they have written to the Guyana Elections Commission and got a response.
She said too that they would be following up with several other letters to the Ministry of Citizenship, as well as the General Registrar’s Office and the Social Protection Ministry, to represent their concerns.
“It is difficult for people living in the hinterland to get new identification cards because they do not have birth certificates,” Khan said.
She noted that many of them are unable to do late registration of births because older persons who are required to sign as having known them for a number of years, would have already passed on. It may also be a case of them being bedridden or wheelchair bound.
She pointed out too that it is not just stressful, but very costly for them to travel to the city to have the document renewed.
In light of that, she noted that “those ID cards were legal all the years” and that given the circumstances, it should be made legal so as to facilitate the elderly folks who are from “deep rural areas in that hinterland community.” She is appealing to the relevant authorities to intervene and assist those persons.
Khan has also told the media that the school in the area, which houses the nursery and primary departments, is in a deplorable condition.
She said too that “there are over 600 children who are not attending school because there is no building or furniture to accommodate them.”
She appealed to the Ministry of Education to provide them with a new building and additional trained teachers.
