Health minister reveals that $1B invested in primary healthcare for 2022

The Guyana Government has expended approximately $1B GUY so far in 2022 to upgrade primary healthcare facilities across the country.

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony made the disclosure during a media related interview on Tuesday.

“This year the ministry has allocated close to a billion Guyana dollars to upgrade various facilities across all the regions in Guyana. We started the process [of upgrading] since last year, testing it out in Region Six and we got very good responses [ from patients], and this year we have spent almost $100M GUY per region improving various primary healthcare facilities,” he said.

The minister pointed out that in Region One, the health ministry executed work on 35 health centres and posts, spending approximately $99.3M GUY.

He said that for Region Two, 24 health centres and posts were upgraded for $99.9M GUY, while Region Three saw 31 health facilities being upgraded at $99.7M GUY.

Further, in Region Four, work on 30 facilities amounted to $138.9M GUY, while in Region Five, 14 health centres were identified for upgrade for $46.9M GUY. In Region Seven, 16 facilities at $99.6M GUY were upgraded. In Region Eight, 22 facilities saw upgrades with spending of $99.5M GUY.

Meanwhile, in Region Nine and Ten 53 and 17 facilities saw improvements to the value of $99.9M GUY and $48.4M GUY respectively.

“Depending on the specific needs of the health centre, we were able to get contractors to come in and fix what needed to be fixed,” Dr Anthony was reported as saying. 

It was noted that since taking office on August 2, 2020, the Government committed to its manifesto promise of prosperity for all Guyanese by expanding primary healthcare, upgrading health facilities across the country, including the expansion of diagnostic services such as CT scans, ultrasound, and echocardiograms, among others.