Region Four RHO determined to enhance health sector

Dr. Gavinash Persaud was appointed Regional Health Officer (RHO) of Region Four succeeding
Dr Quincy Jones. Persaud has a significant wealth of experience, previously serving from 2012
to 2015 as the Regional Health Officer for Region Five.
Commenting on his recent appointment as the new RHO and what he plans for Region, Dr
Persaud pointed out that while there is significant work that he recognizes that needs to be done,
he is determined and ready for the task. The new RHO revealed that there were significant
challenges and difficulties when he assumed the office, noting that there were tremendous biases
in the system from the previous RHO.
He reiterated that he intends to address these and other outstanding issues, thus ensuring that the
public will benefit from an enhanced health care.
“One of the major challenges that I had to immediately address was the lack of resources, it was
not properly allocated by the former administration and this created severe difficulties for several
of our health care professionals working in the region,” he said.
Dr Persaud pointed out that he firmly believes that the manner his predecessor dealt with
infrastructure and development could have been better. This, he said, would have resulted in staff
at the various health centres comfortably being greatly improved. He said that it would have
rebounded in better health care being delivered to the residents.
“A lot of things were done but I think that it could have been done in a manner that could have
been uplifting to the staff of the various health centers,” Dr Persaud said.
The RHO also expressed the view that because of the prolonged election debacle and the fact
that they were operating on a 1/12 budget, it also increased their challenges. This, he noted,
placed undue burden on the system as there were in many cases limited resources to cover
certain expenses.
“There are a lot of complaints infrastructurally and I think because of our political situation also
and the 1/12 of resources that were being given, that in itself would have caused a lot of
deficiencies in that there were not adequate resources available for routine things,” the RHO
said.
Dr Persaud added that the COVID situation further placed undue challenges and difficulties for
those in the health care sector. He disclosed that the COVID situation dominated Region Four.
The previously serving RHO was frank in his view that the previous administration had no plan
in addressing COVID, thus placing enormous difficulties on the health care sector and those
within it.
“The previous administration had no plans; they did no surveillance. They did no major work,
they didn’t have a taskforce, nothing was done so what I did is that I created a surveillance team
that is very efficient. We have one on the East Bank, one on the East Coast, they advise our

patients, they inform all the residents of the East Coast and East Bank of their results so no
longer are persons going ten to twelve days without knowing  their results,”  he declared.
Dr Persaud further noted that his department has been taking a more aggressive approach to
combating COVID. This, he says, sees them following up on resources thus ensuring that a
relationship and effective communication is maintained between the health department and those
being tested and or would have been tested.
“We followed up on resources as it wasn’t prioritized properly as there were too many biases.
We let them know if they need to be retested where to go, we advise them how they can get their
results,” Dr Persaud detailed.
Dr Persaud also has a Masters in Diabetes, which he secured from the UK