Newly-appointed Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony yesterday stated that the recently commissioned $1.6b infectious diseases hospital is a “shell” and major work needs to be done at the hospital and in the health sector to better Guyana’s response to COVID-19.
Dr Anthony, moments after he was sworn in as Minister of Health, spoke with members of the media regarding the new government’s plans to tackle the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The new health minister stated that the infectious diseases hospital which was commissioned recently is not ready to house COVID-19 patients, as there is no staffing structure, no equipment, and if the facility is to be utilised, more renovations need to be done.
“The former president (David Granger) launched this hospital, there is no staffing structure in place… the doctors who would be working there, none of them have been told, they don’t know where they’re coming from. At a minimum you will need about 20 doctors to be there, the technicians, none of that is there,” he said.
Dr Anthony went on to say, “In terms of medical equipment, you will need things like ventilators, none of that is there, so basically as I said, we have a shell and if we are going to be able to utilise that we have to be able to do some more renovations.” According to the minister, things like oxygen and centralised suction along with the procurement of equipment like beds, ventilators and much more are needed to make the hospital ready for the intake of COVID-19 patients.
Currently, he said, an assessment is being done and he would have to go over the assessment and ensure that whatever is there is accurate and he will further advise President Irfaan Ali on the way forward.
“As it is now, if there are (severely ill) patients they will still have to go to the Georgetown Public Hospital COVID unit and until we get these things in place, we can’t place anybody there” the minister said. He mentioned that a technical team will have to assess the air circulation in the building as airflow within the rooms of hospitals of that type need to be limited so as to ensure that cross-contamination does not take place.
Testing
The health minister noted that even as COVID-19 cases continue to rise and the hotspots are now Regions Seven, Eight and Nine, the challenges he discovered in those areas relate to testing and the ability to test.
“What I discovered is that the ministry previously had sent [testing] kits out to the region, when they do the swabbing in the region, they would normally collect it and they would have those samples there sitting for a week before those can come to Georgetown and then when it comes to Georgetown, the capacity at the national lab is quite limited,” Dr. Anthony noted.
“Our capacity to test has been limited because at the national reference lab we have some very old machines, one of the machines that is there goes back to the HIV programme… and that has been repurposed to do the PCR’s (Polymerase Chain Reaction) for COVID” Minister Anthony disclosed to members of the media while adding that there is nothing wrong with the machines however, the time that it takes to complete those tests is quite lengthy. “In this epidemic you have to detect, isolate and treat and so when you detect, if you take too long to detect and the person is positive… by the time you get to them they (would have) infected a lot of people,” he pointed out.
Additionally his ministry will have to go about sourcing the PCR testing machines and as such he mentioned they are working on it even as he declined to give a specific time frame as to when that would occur.
Response in hinterland regions
While he mentioned that a special focus will be placed on the hinterland regions, he said that the borders at those regions will be an issue as they are large and are problematic to man. With that he stated that regional authorities in Region Nine have had discussions with the federal police on the Brazilian side to conduct more monitoring of the borders. Dr Anthony stated that the issue with the border will be a challenge as a number of persons in the region are dual citizens and as such would be inclined to go over to Brazil and return illegally.
“One of the things that we will have to do is figure out a mechanism and may be restricted or limited ways of allowing crossing between the border but a controlled way so that we’re not shutting it down and forcing them to go the illegal way,” the minister said. Similarly with neighbouring Venezuela, he mentioned that he needs to communicate with the relevant authorities there to see what policies can be put in place.
He added that the turnaround time to ascertain whether someone is positive in those areas takes sometimes one week or more which he said is not good enough. “So certainly that is one of the things that has to change right now” he asserted. Further, he stated that he has recommended a number of measures to President Ali and shortly an announcement will be made.
Plans for better COVID-19 response
The minister disclosed that his plan includes building the capacity at the National Public Health Reference Laboratory to be able to deliver at least 300 tests in one day, and with that testing capacity, there will be wider coverage of testing. With regard to the plans for expanding testing, he iterated that the new government has been in communication with private hospitals to partner with them and provide them with testing kits from the ministry so that their testing capacity can be widened.
He also mentioned that they will employ the use of antibody testing as the ministry previously denied private entities permission to use the antibody tests. “One of the things we will be doing is coming up with a policy under which condition these tests can be used and advise accordingly,” Dr Anthony assured.
Minister Anthony stated that the previous government only had in stock a very limited amount of testing kits and as such, they have already started communication with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to increase the procurement of these testing kits and are hoping to increase the number of testing kits in the country. “While you see the numbers currently climbing, we are taking the necessary measures to start to mitigate some of these things” he declared.
He also mentioned that a clinical team was put together which comprises of a number of doctors, who will prepare a national protocol relating to critical care of COVID-19 patients so that a protocol can be standardized. “In the short while we have been doing quite a lot of work to move some of these processes along” the minister said.
