Health Minister, Shadow Health Minister clash over hospital beds, drugs, nurses

Last Updated on Thursday, 30 January 2025, 18:37 by Writer

Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Wednesday slammed the opposition A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) for mismanaging the health sector during its term in office from 2015 to 2020, immediately after his administration came under scathing attack from Shadow Health Minister Dr Karen Cummings.

Noting that the number of hospital beds is used to determine the strength of healthcare delivery, she said the number of hospital beds has declined from 42 per 10,000 from 2000 to 2002, and now that figure stands at 36. “Now, you are in the driving seat so you have to own what is happening,” she told the National Assembly during day four of parliamentary debate on the 2025 National Budget.

But Dr Anthony fired back: “How many hospital beds have you added? Zero! Zero!”. He said six new hospitals, each with 75 beds, would be opened later this year. Additionally, he said the maternal and paediatric hospital at Ogle would have 252 beds, New Amsterdam, 240 beds, West Demerara Hospital, 220 beds, and Moruca, Lethem, and Kato each with 50 beds. In contrast to the APNU+AFC’s promise, he said within the past three years government has built 25 new health posts across Guyana and trained more than 500 community health workers.

He also boasted a drastic decline in maternal deaths from 23 in 2017, 20 in 2018, 23 in 2019 and 14 in 2024, with two who were Venezuelans who crossed the border in Region One and were flown to Georgetown.

Dr Cummings, who is a former Health Minister during the David Granger-led administration, criticised the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-led government for failing to provide high quality, safe and effective drugs and medical supplies. She noted that GY$28.1 billion was allocated for drugs and supplies of which billions were paid up front but GY$1 billion worth of drugs and medical supplies remained unsupplied. “The Honourable Minister must immediately implement an Electronic Logistics Management Information System to track the stocks and the usage of the drugs and the losses. No more expired drugs, no more empty shelves, no more excuses,” she said.

In response to Dr Cummings, the Health Minister displayed several reports by the Auditor General into a number of scandals in the health sector during APNU+AFC’s term in office. He said during 2015 to 2020, drugs and other supplies were “constantly out of stock”. He said one of the Auditor General’s Reports shows that 43 percent of supplies were given to health centres and hospitals.

“Come with the facts because under this government, the supply of pharmaceuticals is at 90 percent across the system compared with your 43 and dismal record. This, here, is the Auditor General’s Report,” he said. Dr Anthony said the Auditor General also uncovered that a number of named health facilities had waiting times for specified drugs ranging from 50 days to 742 days.

He also blistered the APNU+AFC-led administration for opening the Liliendaal Infectious Disease ‘COVID-19’ Hospital without having ventilators, beds, N-95 masks for frontline workers and even Panadol.

The Shadow Health Minister, for her part, said after spending over GY$400 billion on the health sector, the PPP-led government could not improve the health sector over the past 30 years. “This is clearly not a government for the future,” she said.

In the area of Human Resources, she credited the coalition administration with working to build a reliable healthcare system, unlike the current situation in which nurses were not being paid higher wages. “It has now left every citizen of this country depending on fewer nurses for care and the remaining nurses seeking second jobs,” she said, noting that there were now 23 nurses for every 10,000 persons.

“These are the facts that the government hides from the Guyanese people and the public so that they cannot recognise and understand the risk that is involved in their medical care. Without enough nurses, no amount of cash grants will bring you to the care that you and your family need,” she said.

The Health Minister, in turn, rhetorically asked: “Who you think increased the salaries for the nurses? The People’s Progressive Party increased the salary for nurses,” he said. He said 3,000 persons were about to graduate as nurses and nursing assistants, and another 3,000 would be registered for those programmes this year. “We have a track record to stand on. You don’t have anything to stand on and that is why we can confidently go back to the electorate because they are proud of what we have delivered and they will reelect us again,” he said, a clear indication of 2025 election campaigning by both the government and opposition in the budget debate.

Dr Cummings also argued that government’s mental health programme was “underfunded , ignored and dismissed.” She said the conversion of the New Amsterdam Hospitality into a Mental Health facility was done without any comprehensive plan, feasibility study and real investments in long-term mental health care. “The government is obsessed with buildings over brains. A few extra hospital beds will not fix the mental health crisis,” she said. She recommended that Guyana’s mental health strategy include trained professionals, community based mental health services and nationwide suicide prevention programmes.

She said government also needed to tackle dengue, which has infected 10,000 persons and killed 11 persons, by introducing a vector control strategy that should include the supply of mosquito nets and an aggressive fogging campaign.