The St. Joseph Mercy Hospital’s COVID-19 testing and treatment facility, which was recently launched, is equipped to care for patients requiring the first two levels of COVID-19 care, according to Dr. Mahendra Carpen.
“This facility is designed to cater for level one and level two patients, those are patients who do not need a lot of hospitalised type care, don’t need a lot of supplemental oxygen… it’s basically patients who are stable and just need a controlled environment to ride out the storm of the COVID-19 infection,” Dr. Carpen, who works with the facility, has said.
He added that those patients who would require more attentive care that can only be provided in hospitals will be referred to the Georgetown Public Hospital or other facilities that are capable of dealing with patients in more severe condition. The facility, located at the St. Paul Retreat Centre at Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara, was unveiled about two weeks ago and has so far started testing and even had one person being in isolation and receiving treatment. That person has since been discharged.
According to Dr. Carpen, the facility is conducting testing at the cost of $25,000, which is currently the standard price for private facilities in Guyana.
He added that the hospital has its own Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine to conduct testing although it sometimes sends samples to the National Public Health Reference Laboratory as part of a public-private relationship with the Ministry of Public Health to handle COVID-19. “We have developed a very good working relationship between the two entities and I think that speaks well for future collaborations,” Dr. Carpen said.
He further said that the results of all tests are reported to the ministry.
He added that St. Joseph Mercy Hospital has been procuring its own testing kits while it also receives assistance from the Public Health Ministry if necessary.
