Dr. Anthony- Labour room at Infectious Diseases Hospital operational

The Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, now boasts a labour room
where pregnant women infected with COVID-19 can give birth.
Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony said there are currently 22 pregnant women hospitalised at
the facility. “We are keeping them at the COVID hospital and when they go into labour, we
sometimes move them over to the Georgetown hospital to give birth. We have recently set up a
labour room at the Oceanview hospital so persons could deliver there as well, and we have added
operations together so if we need to do emergency cesarean section that we will be able to do
that at the Ocean View hospital,” Minister Anthony said.
The health minister made a passionate appeal to expectant mothers to get vaccinated against the
deadly disease. The minister in October, in an effort to reduce the number of  Covid-19
infections among pregnant and breastfeeding women, rolled out a targeted vaccination campaign.
Minister Anthony pointed out that there is still a large percentage of pregnant women who are
unvaccinated. “That would result in them getting sick because during pregnancy. Your immune
response is a bit depressed and therefore it is absolutely essential that you should get the COVID
vaccine which will protect you from COVID-19,” Dr Anthony said.
The minister declared that it is safe to take the COVID-19 vaccine at any time during pregnancy.
“At this point, you can be vaccinated in any one of the trimesters, whether it’s first, second or
third. It doesn’t matter but you need to be vaccinated. We have had meetings with the
obstetricians, we’ve spoken to them we have sent out guidelines to all the doctors who are caring
for pregnant women, and we have shown them the consensus that has emerged around the globe
from very stringent authorities pertaining to why women should get vaccinated during
pregnancy,” he explained.
Dr Anthony noted that earlier this year, there was a lot of skepticism surrounding pregnant and
breastfeeding women taking a Covid-19 vaccine, as there was limited scientific data on the issue.
He added that recent studies have shown that the vaccines are safe for them to take.