RHEC and RHOs under the microscope

THE secrecy now shrouding the work of the Regional Health and Emergency Committee
(RHEC) of Upper Demerara/Berbice (Region Ten) baffles residents and troubles Health Minister
Dr Frank Anthony.
In the very recent past the RHEC was considered a doyen in the health sector but suddenly seems
to have lost its way in residents’ assessment.
Citizens of the bauxite-mining town of Linden told www.aroundtheregions.com senior regional
officials, including Regional Health Officer (RHO) Dr Gregory Harris, are tight-lipped with vital
information on key health issues affecting their wellbeing.
Health Minister Dr Anthony is not happy.
“For the health sector, information is not hierarchical it is flat because in our daily meetings all
the RHOs and other key policymakers are present so decisions are made right there. You don’t
have layers and layers of bureaucracy before you can get the attention of somebody to complain
to or raise an issue. Issue are settled right there. All the RHOs are involved and we have a
number of technical officers in these meetings to ensure we can expedite whatever is being
requested,” Minster Anthony offered.
Information on the deadly COVID-19 pandemic reaches the public much quicker because of the
daily meetings and other systems in the health sector Dr Anthony said. He acknowledged the
existence of some communication gaps between the pubic and the Regional Task Forces.
“There is room for improvement in getting information to people. We are trying…despite
peoples’ dissatisfaction,” the Minister said.
The Health Ministry is using a pedagogical public approach to informing the population about
the raging deadly global pandemic which has so far killed more 150 Guyanese and 1.5 million
globally

“We have started an educational series in the daily Chronicle Newspaper that looks at the science
of COVID. We are talking about different aspects of the disease and we have many other
programmes that we are doing, but we still find people telling us that they don’t know what we
are doing. You still find people telling us that they don’t understand this issue or that issue and
we have to continue. While we have reached some people, we have to continue helping with the
education and so forth,” he stressed.
“Every day education on COVID changes. The research right now is phenomenal and every day
you get new information (so) we are upgrading how we treat the information that we want to get
over to the public,” Minister Antony said.
Technology available to the public is complicating the Ministry’s efforts, the government official
explained
“What we found with this pandemic is because there is so many avenues for quick dispersal
of information…false and inaccurate information also spread easily and create a lot of
trouble for us to undo,” Minister Anthony said.