More operating rooms, ICU beds part of major expansion at GPHC

Massive improvements and expansions are planned for the operating rooms, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and human resources at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Robbie Rambaran announced on Friday.

There are currently six operating theatres at the GPHC, one of which must always be ready and available for emergencies.

“So, on any given day, we are using five theatres and we don’t have just from the general surgeons, we have specialty and sub-specialty that need to use the theatre,” the CEO told a news conference.

However, that is expected to change with plans to expand the operating theatres to about 12.

“Theatre time is one of our challenges and that is why the new hospitals that are going to be built, we are going to have theatres there,” Dr. Rambaran said.

With the construction of six new regional hospitals in Guyana, long travels to Georgetown for specialised medical services are expected to come to an end.

Dr. Rambaran revealed that post graduate training programmes will be introduced to train doctors and surgeons who will be sent to these hospitals; this is also expected to end the long wait for surgeries.

“There is planning in the pipeline to increase our surgical theatre from six to an additional four or six. We are hoping in our plan going forward we would have about 10-12 operating rooms,” Dr. Rambaran noted.

In addition to the operating rooms, there are also plans to expand the ICU capacity at the hospital from seven to 20 bed.

“There will be massive expansions and plans here as well and all of this will be geared towards patients having faster surgical time,” Dr. Rambaran said.

Meanwhile, Vice President of Global Health Center at Northwell Health, Dr. Eric Cioe-Pena who is in Guyana on a surgical mission, said it is easier to build operating theatres than it is to fill them with personnel that are highly skilled and trained. And this is where Northwell Health comes in.

“As the operating theatre capability grows, the need for nurses that are technically skilled for operating rooms are going to be necessary, so this educational pipeline that they [GPHC] have taken so carefully to create with us, is going to help build those human resources as the physical plan gets upgraded so that we can not only have 10-12 operating rooms but fill them with highly qualified and trained staff,” Dr. Cioe-Pena said.

Guyana’s health sector was allocated $84.9 billion this year with significant sums being directed towards the creation of much-needed hospitals and training healthcare professionals.