Government through a partnership with Mount Sinai Health System and oil company Hess Corporation on Friday announced major plans to transform national healthcare, including the overhaul of both the public and private health systems, and setting up of oncology and cardiovascular centres of excellence.
The initiative will be funded by the Government and Hess Corporation, with the Stabroek Block partner investing close to US$32 million.
Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, Dr Jeremy Boal yesterday inked an agreement during a simple ceremony held at State House, where President Irfaan Ali also announced that Mount Sinai has offered to provide a 30 per cent discount to any Guyanese who may require any specialised treatment abroad, once they go through the Ministry of Health for access to the facility.
Also present for the signing were Chief Executive Officer of Hess Corporation John Hess; Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Malcolm Watkins.
Delivering the feature address at the event, Ali said the goal of the initiative is to position Guyana as a destination of choice for health care services globally.
To achieve this, he said there will be an “overhaul” in both the public and private sector. “There will be an entire system overhaul….You can have the best service but if you don’t have the system or platform to provide that service you would be wasting time,” Ali said.
To kickstart the initiative, Boal said that Mount Sanai has assembled a team of over 40 leaders, who are specialised in oncology, cardiovascular medicine, endocrinology, primary and preventative care, global health and health system operations and they will arrive in Guyana within the next few days to engage their counterparts at the George-town Public Hospital.
“…While we acknowledge achieving the full health care transformation will take some time, we are hitting the ground running, starting next week. Three days from now Mount Sinai’s Clinical, Quality and administrative leaders will arrive to engage with their counterparts at the Georgetown Public Hospital to improve and enhance care and outcomes there,” Boal said.
Soon after that, other clinical experts will return to Guyana to continue the planning for the announced oncology and cardiovascular centres of excellence as well as end-to-end diabetes screening and care, Boal added.
Further, he noted that leaders from their institution will also work with their local partners to help integrate all aspects of the health system throughout Guyana, from primary and preventative care to emergency and tertiary care.
Three components
Dr Anthony revealed that the new national health care initiative has three components.
The first component, he said, will focus on strengthening primary health care across the country and developing a health informatics system.
“….We will be looking at how we can prevent things like diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and so forth. Also something that we have always spoken about but had much difficulty in achieving has been developing a health informatics system…During this period we will be working on developing not just the electronic medical records system but also using the data to do proper planning as we move the health system forward,” he explained.
“We envisage the day when someone would have a smart card, when they come to anyone of our facility that they would be able to present that card and when they put it into the computer system at any one of the facilities, you would be able to pull up that patient’s record, regardless of which ever part of the system you come to,” Anthony said.
The second component will focus on change management at the George-town Public Hospital. “…We will be having a team from Morningside Hospital that would be partnering directly with counterparts at the Georgetown Public Hospital in all the aspects of its operations. And so we will look at developing clinical excellence, developing patient care relationships, improving turnaround times for testing and waiting time people would be waiting to see a doctor and so forth,” Anthony further explained.
And, the final component of the initiative will see the government and private sector collaborating to establish the two centres of excellence. “…We are looking at a joint partnership between government and the private sector to develop a cardiovascular centre of excellence for Guyana and for the wider Caribbean. Also we are looking at developing an oncology centre of excellence again for Guyana and the wider Caribbean,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Hess said his company was proud to be part of the strategic partnership with the government and the Mount Sinai Health System to bring a brighter and healthier future “for every Guyanese citizens now and for generations to come.”
‘World class’ system
According to Anthony, the signing of the agreement marks a pivotal moment for health care transformation in the country. “The Mount Sinai team has the expertise to help us build the new world class system that we are thinking about,” he said.
The creation of a world class health care system in Guyana was said to be a vision of Ali.
In his address, Ali said with the new initiative the country’s health sector will be subject to a “monumental” transformation.
He stated that the transformation will focus on technological upgrades from the primary to tertiary healthcare levels.
Additionally, to advance the process forward, Ali said a Coordinating Steering Committee which will include Mount Sinai, Hess Corporation and the Government of Guyana would be established as well as a National Steering Committee which will include the Private Sector and the Government of Guyana.
He also stated that before the process is concluded, a patient management information system will be deployed. “…By the end of this process, we must be able to go to every single secondary school and register every child and do a baseline health assessment of every child, the future of Guyana…Put them on electronic management information system where we can track them for the rest of their lives and provide the best health care for them,” Ali explained.
