GPHC now officially certified as a kidney transplant centre

The country’s healthcare system is constantly being boosted to meet international standards and now the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) is a certified kidney transplant centre.

The certificate was handed over on Wednesday at the Ministry of Health’s Boardroom, Brickdam. It was through the Ministry of Health in conjunction with the Human Organ and Tissue Transplant Agency (HOATTA), that the hospital received support to achieve this monumental status, being the first in the country to get the certification.

Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said the country’s healthcare must meet international standards and in recognising this, the hospital can now compete on this level.

“While we have been doing a lot of good work, we also need to ensure that we are compliant with international standards. What we have done here and that extensive process is verifying that we are meeting all the international benchmarks that exist in other parts of the world,” the Health Minister said.

A kidney transplant is a surgery to place a healthy kidney from a living or deceased donor into a person whose kidneys no longer function. This is a lifesaving procedure.

The establishment of the HOATTA was made possible through the enactment of the Human Organ and Tissue Transplant Act 2022. The agency’s members were officially gazetted in February 2023, with their appointments taking effect in April of the same year.

To ensure that the procedures are of high standards, there was a lot of investment in capacity building and acquiring regulations to operationalise the Act. There are seven drafted regulations and the training of staff to perform for the transplant programme is ongoing.

Dr Anthony said the agency’s team has worked ardently to push the barriers and ensure that kidney transplants in Guyana are advanced. Several collaborations with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), among other international stakeholders in the medical fraternity, were key factors for the level of service attained.

With the certification, it is expected that various types of transplants will soon be conducted locally.

“Because of these arrangements we have been able to put a lot of measures in place, so as we go forward, moving from living donors to Cadaveric transplants, I think the public can rest assured that we are adhering to all the best international practices,” Dr Anthony said.

To further advance the training of the medical fraternity in kidney transplant and nephrology, the Government of Guyana is seeking partnerships with countries like Spain and Brazil.

Chair of the Human Organ and Tissue Transplant Agency, Dr Shanti Singh, said the agency is already engaging with dialysis centres that can further engage persons with kidney disease to consider transplants.