Gov’t targets full coverage at healthcare centres as medex cadre grows to 109

With the recent graduation of 29 new medex, the total number of serving medex in Guyana’s healthcare system has risen to 109.

Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony says the increase is vital as the country expands its network of hospitals and equips them with modern technology.

He was addressing the graduating batch of 140 individuals from the Clinical and Technical training programme at the Pegasus Corporate Suites, Georgetown.

“While we’re building all these hospitals and putting in all these equipment, we also want to strengthen primary healthcare.

“We strongly believe that in the 185 health centres we have, there should be a medex at each one,” the Health Minister said.

The minister explained that an additional 76 medex are still needed to ensure every health centre is staffed. He said the programme now deliberately recruits trainees from across the regions to ensure graduates return to serve their home communities, instead of remaining concentrated in Region Four.

Registration for the medex programme, as well as the pharmacy assistance programme, medical laboratory technician programme and the rehabilitation programme, opened on August 14, 2025 and persons are encouraged to apply for this opportunity which includes job security training.

Dr. Anthony also pointed to health challenges in hinterland areas, particularly malaria.

“In many of the interior areas, we’ll have to look at malaria… our past strategy was to control malaria, but we want to move to a different strategy to eradicate malaria from Guyana,” he said.

The expanded group of medex will be deployed to regional and remote facilities, supporting the government’s wider goal of ensuring access to quality primary healthcare across the country.