| A new Board of members of the Berbice Regional Health Authority (BRHA) was installed recently by Minister of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsarran, at the New Amsterdam Hospital.The health services in the Berbice area have, in recent times, come under heavy criticisms ranging from the long waiting times at the New Amsterdam Hospital to allegations of poor treatment ofThe new BRHA Board members with Mr. Armogan and Minister Ramsarranpatients at the National Psychiatric Hospital.Numerous maternal deaths and at least one mysterious death of a teen at the Skeldon Hospital recently have been some of the numerous concerns about healthcare delivery in the Ancient County.The BRHA is tasked with keeping functions and policy- making at the levels of the Ministry of Health (MoH) and promote actual health-care delivery at the acceptable levels.Region Six was chosen in 2005 to have the first Regional Health Authority since that region offers all five levels of healthcare, health posts, health centres, district and regional hospitals, and the two national hospitals, the National Psychiatric and Opthalmology Hospitals. Region Six also has riverain areas, towns and interior locations hence the region was chosen to pilot the BRHA in 2006 by then Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy.Dr. Ramsarran noted that there is a need for the Regional Health Authorities because of Guyana’s size. Instead of having all ten regions in charge of health,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, Ramsarran said, there was a decision to amalgamate the units into one branch “for synergies instead of having small regions having all of the bureaucracy for a health sector within that region, you needed to unite certain things”.He noted that there are numerous health care facilities across Guyana but many are not run by the Ministry of Health but by the regions themselves.When the country is finally reconfigured, Ramsarran announced that there will only be four RHA…”so the MoH will be just like the provider of policy, technical skills for the regions and these RHA’s will be in different clusters….and you will be having four health authorities…so that the administrative functions are devolved”.Region Five, he noted, has an important role to play within the new BRHA, “because Regions Five and Six are being united.” Hinterland regions, he said too, will be united for administrative purposes and nimbleness of administration as well as monitoring and evaluation.The new members of the BRHA are CEO, Dr. Vishwa Mahadeo;, Anil Beharry, Chairman; Paul Ramrattan, Riyon Peters, Leslie Cadogan, Permanent Secretary of MoH; Deena Panday, Vishnu Doerga, Andrew Harricharran, Ram Mangru, and Dr. Mohammed Yacoob.The new members were charged by the Region Six Chairman, David Armogan, to stand firm in their duties to ensure the two regions have better health- care delivery systems so that criticisms being leveled against the health services delivery in those regions can be reduced.The Regional Health Authority concept or idea was developed many years ago as part of the health sector reform project in Guyana with assistance from the International Development Bank (IDB). It was a compulsory measure taken by the IDB that made it essential for the government to put the money to use to start looking at regional health authorities, and “not throw all the money behind the MoH”. “They (the IDB) were insisting that we go the way of RHAs and we had lots of meeting with the IDB and representatives to deal with us”.There are over 20 health centres in Berbice. Region Six alone stretches from Baracara along the Canje Creek to Orealla along the Corentyne River. “It’s a pretty big region and very extensive and the spread is extremely large. You have a lot of work to do in terms of movement and you have to be very mobile”, he charged the new members. |
