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Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, has said that Guyana has more doctors and nurses right now than at any other time in the country’s history.The Minister said that less than 90 registered doctors were practising in Guyana prior to 1992, and that more than half of them were Cubans.He added that at present, there are over 400 registered doctors, most of whom are Guyanese, with others being Chinese and Cubans. “And by this time next year,NFL Jerseys Cheap, that number will go up to pass 600. That is a good example of how, with all the health professionals, we are increasing the numbers”, he noted.He said that more than 300 nurses will graduate this month. “In 1992, we had 700 qualified nurses in Guyana, and right now, we have more than 1,600. It is another example of how the numbers are increasing and yet people talked of more shortages today than we talked about then,” he noted.Dr Ramsammy said that the existing “shortage” in the system is not due to the Ministry of Health not training enough people, but because more services are being offered across the country.“Our hospitals have expanded; we are providing more services…more sophisticated services. We have really scaled across the country, and so, even though we may be adding more staff, we still continue to have more demand for staff because we are expanding the services daily.”Currently, there are more than 400 Guyanese studying in Cuba. Another 100 are expected to go to Cuba, shortly.“Once this special programme comes to an end, we will have another 500 doctors coming into the country. We will continue to send students to Cuba but not in such large numbers.“We will go back to the regular—sending about eight every year, rather than the dozens and hundreds. And we are hoping at the same time—because doctors will leave, doctors will get old— that will be done through an expanded programme at the University of Guyana.Where we used to take in no more than 15 students every year, we are now taking in more than 35 students every year and we expect, as our capacity improves, to expand the UG intake to over 60 programmes,” Ramsammy said. |
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