Guyana health minister urges global health overhaul as funds tighten

Last Updated on Saturday, 23 May 2026, 11:15 by Denis Chabrol

Reproduced from Devex

Guyana’s health minister has called for a major rethink of the global health architecture, warning that international health organizations have become too bureaucratic and are being forced to restructure as funding pressures mount.

Speaking at Devex Impact House on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly on Thursday, Dr. Frank Anthony said the institutions need to become more nimble, efficient, and responsive to the needs of smaller and poorer countries — especially as the sector faces a tighter funding environment. “I think sometimes over time these organizations can become very bureaucratic,” he said at a Devex Impact House event. “With the crises and so on that we are having, you need to have organizations that are more nimble and to respond to real needs.”

His comments come as World Health Organization member states discuss a proposal for a joint process on the future of the global health architecture, amid wider debate over whether the system needs deeper consolidation, mandate changes, or institutional reform. The minister said the current environment leaves little choice but to rethink how global health bodies operate. “If we don’t want to restructure, we are being forced to restructure, because it’s not an environment where there’s a lot of money available,” he said. “There’s no other way around this.”

He said the issue is not only whether global health agencies are adequately funded, but whether they are structured to deliver effectively.“We need to look internally at the organization and whether the structure that we currently have is really fit for purpose,” he said. “And if it’s not, then we need to have a major overhaul.”

The minister also questioned whether regional health bodies are sufficiently accountable to the global institutions they sit under, saying that in some cases they may be “working in different areas, doing different things,” without effective reporting and accountability. He added that disputes over how funding is distributed across regions have further complicated the system.

For smaller and poorer countries, he said, the stakes are especially high.

“They need to get their voices heard in the global environment, and people really need to listen to them, because they have major challenges,” he said. “If we’re not listening to them and working for them, then who are these organizations really working for?”

The next WHO director-general will need to combine political skill, technical expertise, and the ability to address the organization’s financial challenges, Anthony said.

Copying articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copywriter policy. Please use the sharing options. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool. “Whoever is coming in will have a lot of work to do,” he said. “You will have to be very politically savvy.”He said the next leader will also need to “find money” for WHO, while ensuring that the organization’s technical expertise is harnessed effectively and deployed quickly. “While you might have people in different departments, if you’re not able to harness that and channel it in the right direction and in a timely way, then you’ll have a problem,” he said.

The minister pointed to Guyana’s own health reforms as an example of how countries can use technology, centralized procurement, and investment in health workers to expand access despite resource constraints. Guyana, he said, now operates a telemedicine system across 150 sites, allowing community health workers in remote areas to consult doctors elsewhere in the country in real time.

Many of those facilities have been equipped with solar panels, solar refrigerators, Starlink connectivity, and internet-enabled medical devices, allowing doctors to view ultrasounds and ECGs remotely.“It’s hard for us to put maybe a doctor in every remote community, but using telemedicine, we are able to offer high-quality advice to our patients,” he said. “The doctor doesn’t have to be physically present.”He described the system as a “game changer,” particularly for remote and Indigenous communities that previously had limited access to healthcare and training opportunities.

Guyana has about 460 health facilities across its 10 regions, ranging from health posts and health centers to district, regional, and national referral hospitals. Healthcare in the public system is free, and Anthony said the government has tried to build a tiered referral system that allows patients to start at the community level and move upward when more specialized care is needed.

Copying articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copywriter policy. Please use the sharing options. If a patient in a remote area needs urgent specialist care, he said, the country can arrange a medevac to bring them to the capital for treatment. “We have that tiered system, and we refer upwards, and I think by and large it has been working,” he said.

But he acknowledged that human resources remain one of Guyana’s biggest health system challenges, particularly as nurses and other health workers migrate abroad.To address that, Guyana has added about 5,000 health workers to the system over the past three years and expanded training programs across the Ministry of Health. The country is also using a hybrid nursing program hosted on Coursera and developed with a WHO collaborating center in Brazil. The first cohort of 600 nurses is expected to graduate in July.“It mightn’t look very big, but it’s quite a big number for us,” he said.The government has also expanded medical training at the University of Guyana, doubling undergraduate intake from about 60 students to at least 120, and has created domestic residency programs to train specialists.At the same time, Guyana is investing in hospital infrastructure. The minister said the country opened six new hospitals last year, each with about 75 inpatient beds, and has another eight hospitals under construction. The goal, he said, is to ensure people can access not only primary care, but also secondary and tertiary services closer to where they live.“Primary care can only give you so much,” he said. “It will help you with the prevention, but when people really get sick, you also have to provide hospital care or secondary, tertiary care, and you need to invest there as well.”

Copying articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copywriter policy. Please use the sharing options. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool. Those investments are also aimed at tackling the country’s growing burden of noncommunicable diseases. Anthony said Guyana continues to work on infectious disease control and elimination — including leprosy, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, filaria, malaria, and mother-to-child transmission of HIV — but that NCDs are becoming a bigger challenge as people live longer and lifestyles change.“With some amount of growing prosperity, people are eating the wrong things,” he said. “Our diet is shifting with prosperity. People have stopped walking and exercising naturally.”

He said Guyana has seen increases in cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, and kidney disease. About four years ago, the Ministry of Health created a dedicated program to focus on chronic noncommunicable diseases, with specific programs targeting those conditions.

The minister also highlighted electronic health records as another area where technology can improve efficiency and reduce costs. Guyana is rolling out a system that would give every person a card, allowing health workers to access patient records across the system.

Previously, he said, patients could spend long periods waiting while staff searched for paper files. In one center where electronic records have already been introduced, patients can now book appointments and be seen within 10 to 15 minutes of their scheduled slot.

“That has really helped a lot of people, rather than coming and sitting there for the whole day without getting care,” he said. “This kind of patient-centric approach is extremely important.”