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Residents of Masakenari also known as Gunns Village in Deep South Rupununi Region Nine, will benefit from access to quality health care with the introduction of the TeleMedicine Clinic.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony along with Regional Health Officer of Region Nine, Cerdec Mc Watt, Coordinator of Health in the Hinterland, Michael Gouveia and Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 19Labs, Ram Fish travelled to this far-flung community to officially launch the programme on Wednesday.
With this programme coming on stream, community health workers (CHW) will have access to expertise from doctors and specialists in Georgetown via tablets and other electronic devices, to deliver health care to residents.
The minister explained, “When you add the things that we are doing in other parts of the system, like upgrading our hospitals and so forth, this really would improve primary healthcare and this would help us to connect with those hospitals.”
The clinic has been equipped with a digital stethoscope, pulse oximeter, infrared thermometer, blood pressure monitor, mobile ultrasound, exam cameras among other technological devices that will be used in the delivery of this service.
“We’re also able to take the electronic medical record of the patient….and I think that’s extremely important because in many instances, we don’t have accurate data on the patients we have in remote communities. This is now going to help us to build an electronic health record system across the regions” Dr Anthony noted.
The health minister said while this is a pilot programme, from all that has been seen so far, it is working, and the programme will be subject to evaluation.
He also informed the ministry will be looking to implement similar programmes in other remote communities and funding has already been secured for expansion.
