The Ministry of Public Health on Monday morning launched five new clinical and technical health programmes geared at effectively satisfying the countrywide demand for certified health practitioners in various regions.
The students will be trained to become pharmacy assistants, medical lab technicians, environmental health assistants, X-ray technicians and audiological practitioners.
The students gathered in the main auditorium of the Georgetown Nursing School Annex in Kingston on Monday at the start of the programmes.
Health Education Officer Kim Bristol spoke about how the students were chosen.
“The Medical Lab Technician, Audiological Practitioner, X-ray Technician and the Pharmacy Assistant programmes require four CXCs including Maths, English and Science while the Environmental Health Assistant programme requirements is three CXC subjects inclusive of English,” Bristol said.
The News Room was told that the duration of the programmes varies from 12-15 moths depending on the nature of the programme.
Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence gave the feature address and spoke at length to the students about the importance of their work to the development of Guyana’s health care system.
“One of our dreams it to fulfill that goal that persons residing in Guyana will be among the healthiest not only in the Caribbean but in the Americas and that is a task that you will help us to achieve,” Minister Lawrence told students.
The Minister went on to stress that the programmes were structured to cater to specific needs that were identified through various needs assessments that were done both on the coast and the hinterland regions.
“We looked at our GAP analysis and so we know right now as we are here how many personnel we need in every aspect of health in each region,” she stated.
A total of 44 hinterland students were also selected to be trained and are among the students set to benefit from the opportunity.
