Six new hospitals to open this year- Jagdeo

The government plans to open six new hospitals this year as part of plans to make health services more accessible across the country, and Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said the government is open to hiring healthcare workers from any country to meet short-term staffing needs.

“We’re going to launch six new hospitals before the end of the year… six new hospitals with CT Scans now so that means you need to have about 18- 20 technicians to run only CT scans. They’re starting to train people but we don’t have enough people.

“The President has said clearly to (Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony), ‘Recruit from any part of the world.’ We want when these hospitals come into operation that people can walk in and get services,” Jagdeo said on Thursday at a party press conference.

He explained that even though the government is on a robust mission to train many more Guyanese for jobs in the health sector, the government understands some workers may need to come from abroad.

He said, “If we don’t have enough nurses and we need them in the short term, we’d have to bring them in and the technicians and everyone.”

By 2028, the government will have constructed and operationalised 12 state-of-the-art regional hospitals, delivering world-class healthcare services to residents in Regions One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Eight, and Nine. The first six should be opened this year; these are the Lima, De Kinderen, Enmore, Diamond, Bath, and the No 75 Regional Hospitals in Regions Two, Three, Four, Five and Six, respectively.

All of these institutions will have 24-hour Accident and Emergency, 24-hour labs, a suite of imaging services including ultrasound, digital X-Ray, and CT scans, along with operation theatres and more – eliminating long hours of traveling to access quality care.