NEWS
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM
Austrian company gets contract for maternal and children hospital …as talks advance on project
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iscussions between the Governments of Guyana and Austria are being finalised in relation to the construction of a much anticipated maternal and children hospital in Georgetown. This is according to President Dr Irfaan Ali, who told reporters on the sidelines of an event on Tuesday evening that the Government of Austria, a central European nation, will be carrying out the project. “The discussions are fairly advanced and in its final stage. We would have already moved to the award [of the contract] so it is just now finalising the final details and having the project move to implementation,” he stated. According to the Head of State, the project is being executed with a Design, Finance, Build (DFB) model and the contract is being awarded to Austrian company, VAMED, which is a global provider for hospitals and other facilities in the healthcare sector. Based on information on its website, the VAMED group’s international portfolio comprises the entire value chain from project development via the planning and
President Dr Irfaan Ali
construction of a healthcare facility, to highly specialised commercial, infrastructure, and technical services. While there was no further information on the project details including the cost of constructing the maternal and children hospital, the Guyana Government has already set aside some $12.4 billion for the state-ofthe-art paediatric and maternal hospital in Budget 2022 that is currently being scrutinised in the National Assembly. In March 2021, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony had announced that
Government is looking to establish a maternal and children’s hospital, which will offer specialised care to patients. At the time, it was noted that Guyana was already having talks with bilateral agencies in order to get this project off the ground. However, last September on the sidelines of the 76th Session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, President Ali met with Austrian President, Alexander Van der Bellen, in New York City to discuss strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two nations. During that meeting, the Guyanese Leader had disclosed that his Austrian counterpart had expressed interest in constructing the maternal and children’s hospital, among other things, here. With this state-of-theart facility here, specialisations such as children’s cardiology services that were started at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) will be transferred to the hospital that will be developed. Back in 2020, the Health Minister had revealed that there were significant local and foreign interest from
the Private Sector in constructing speciality hospitals in Guyana. “In terms of speciality hospital, apart from maybe Government investing, there has also been a lot of interest from the Private Sector, locally and foreign, to invest in developing specialised services. So, we are very favourable to such investments,” the Minister had said. At one point, the Government of Guyana was in the process of constructing a speciality hospital of its own at Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara. To fund it, the former People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Administration secured a US$18 million line of credit (LOC) from the Indian Export-Import (EXIM) bank. This hospital would have provided specialised services to Guyanese and eliminated the need for persons to travel overseas for expensive, lifesaving treatment. Back in 2012, the contract to construct the hospital was awarded to an Indiabased company, Surendra Engineering Corporation Limited, but was subsequently terminated after the firm breached several of its contractual obligations. At
that time, just over US$4 million of the funding was spent on preliminary works. After the former APNU/ AFC Government entered office in 2015, it proceeded to hand over the contract to Fedders Lloyd Corporation, which was subsequently blacklisted by the World Bank for unrelated procurement breaches. With that, the speciality hospital project hit its final snag. As a result, the coalition Government used the remaining US$14 million from the LOC to fund upgrading existing regional hospitals. Those works are still ongoing. In the meantime, at least one local company, Cardiology Services Incorporated, headed by Guyanese Cardiologist Dr Mahendra Carpen, has pub-
licly indicated its interest in building a speciality hospital in Guyana. However, the company was unwittingly vested with land under the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/ AFC) Government by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), while the Government was in a caretaker status. With the change of Government, the company has since returned the land to ensure there is a fair and transparent land allocation process. Dr Carpen had signalled his intent to work with the current Government to bring the speciality hospital to fruition. (G8)
3 new COVID-19 deaths recorded, 17 in ICU …Govt working to procure COVID-19 pills – Health Minister
GUYANA COVID-19 DASHBOARD FEBRUARY 9, 2022 UPDATE
NUMBER OF NEW CASES
H
ealth Minister Dr Frank Anthony announced that the Government is currently working with different companies to procure both the Pfizer and Merck COVID treatment pills. During Monday’s COVID-19 update, the Minister stated that while the Government cannot manufacture these pills, they are currently working with private companies to acquire same. “What we are working on currently is to make sure that we can secure both the Merck drug and the Pfizer drug and so we have been trying to work with different companies to see if we can get that into Guyana.” As Guyana is yet to acquire this treatment regimen, the Minister continues to encourage that persons get vaccinated. “The appeal would be to get people to be vaccinated and hopefully we can get more people coming out to
NUMBER OF PERSONS IN INSTITUTIONAL ISOLATION get these vaccines.” Meanwhile, the Minister revealed that the Health Ministry is currently monitoring 4358 active COVID-19 cases, with another 167 new cases being detected within the last 24 hours. A breakdown of the new cases showed 28 in Region One (Barima-Waini); 13 in Region Two (PomeroonSupenaam); 19 in Region Three (Essequibo IslandsWest Demerara); 62 in Region Four (DemeraraMahaica); two in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); five in Region Six (East BerbiceCorentyne); three in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); one in Region Eight (PotaroSiparuni); 14 in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and 20 in Region 10 (Upper DemeraraBerbice). There are currently 91 persons in hospitals across the country with 68 persons at the Ocean View Facility. Of those, 17 persons are in the ICU.
New deaths
The Health Ministry reported on Wednesday that three new COVID-19 deaths were recorded. These are an 86-year-old woman from Region 10 who died on Wednesday; a 72-year-old man from Region Two who died on February 7 and an 80-year-old from Region Three died on February 8. These three new deaths now take the total COVID-19 death toll in Guyana to 1188. So far 427,336 or 83.3 per cent of adults have received a first dose of the COVID vaccines while 319,596 or 62.3 per cent have received a second dose of the COVID vaccines. For the 12 to 17 age cohort, 32,978 or 45.2 per cent have received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccines while 23,528 or 32.3 per cent have received both doses. In terms of booster doses, 43,715 persons have received their doses.
167 98
NUMBER OF PERSONS IN HOME ISOLATION
3289
NUMBER OF PERSONS IN COVID-19 ICU
17
NUMBER OF PERSONS IN INSTITUTIONAL QUARANTINE
25
TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES BY GENDER (FEMALES)
33,355
TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES BY GENDER (MALES)
28,546
TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES IN GUYANA SINCE 2020
61,901
NUMBER OF RECOVERED CASES
57,309
TOTAL 1st DOSE VACCINATED FULLY IMMUNISED TOTAL NUMBER OF DEATHS
DISTRIBUTION OF TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES SINCE MARCH 2020 REGION 1
2420
REGION 2
2388
REGION 3
7938
REGION 4
30,733
REGION 5
2303
REGION 6
5604
REGION 7
2395
REGION 8
866
REGION 9
3801
REGION 10
3453
HERE IS HOW YOU CAN BE SAFE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Wear a face mask.
427,336 319,596 1188
Keep a physical distance of at least 6 feet. Wash your hands or use handsanitizer If you have any symptoms, call the COVID-19 Hotline.
GET MEDICAL ADVICE ON COVID-19 FROM MOH 24/7 HOTLINE NUMBERS: 2311166; 226 7480; 624 6674; 624 2819; 624 3067 OR 180/181.
