‘All hands on deck’ to push health, education agenda this year

The government is accelerating its efforts to ensure Guyanese benefit from important investments in the country.

On Tuesday, President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali met with Regional Executive Officers (REOs), Regional Health and Education Officers and cabinet members for an open discussion on strengthening access to quality health and education services for the population.

The meeting at his office sought to address even the most minuscule issues and other changes that can be made to make the system more efficient and people-oriented.

“We want to reduce the costs of people receiving government business, reduce the time it takes them to receive government service and improve the quality and delivery of that service.  I have made it very clear that [all the programme heads in the regions] are going to be held accountable for the delivery of service to people,” he said.

The president instructed that every health centre be given three months of medical supplies to avoid any future hassle.

“Our patients should not be coming every month just to have the replenishment of their medical supplies. Every health centre must upkeep a full register of all the patients and their medical supply needs,” President Ali said.

The delivery of medical supplies will be further decentralised soon, especially in the hinterland regions for various health posts to have a year’s supply.

The daily use of these supplies will be monitored through an electronic platform to ensure they can be replenished efficiently.

The president has directed the Minister of Health to ensure that by the end of this month, a comprehensive demand chart for the entire year is available for every region.

Each region will then be responsible for further decentralising the demand chart to the district level to eliminate any gaps or delays.

Issues related to human resource challenges, absenteeism, and abuse of sick leave were also raised.

The president assured that strong measures will be implemented to hold persons accountable. A quality assurance committee will also be established to strengthen monitoring systems to ensure minimum infrastructure standards are met at all health and education facilities.

The 2025 budget allocated $143.2 billion to advance the country’s health sector and this allocation provides for the completion of several regional and specialty facilities, along with the procurement of medical equipment and supplies, among other tasks.

An impressive $175 billion was budgeted for education to complete several initiatives such as the National School Feeding Programme, the construction of new schools and rehabilitation of existing facilities and the ‘Because we Care’ cash grant. Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Sonia Parag, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand, and Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony also delivered remarks on key priority areas in their respective sectors.