Regions of Guyana
Region 3 - West Demerara Hospital
Staff: 1 Physiotherapist and 3 Rehab. Assistants (RAs)
Good sized department for the amount of patients that come through with enough PT, OT and SLP equipment and resources to service these patients.
Focus was on clinical practice, incorporating more functional activities into treatment and focusing on the why behind these activities. For example instead of only prescribing hand exercises to a stroke patient, relating it to daily activities like making roti to work the same muscles, etc.
 |
| Can you spot the Enabling OT book!! Yay Canada |
Travel: Hour mini bus ride from Georgetown to Parika. Speedboat from Parika to Supenaam. Then car to Charity. Total travel time was about 3.5 hours.
Main base is Charity, which is staffed by 1 physiotherapist and 3 RAs. The PT and one RA do the outreaches on Mondays and Wednesdays, where they travel to Suddie and Anna Regina for the day.
 |
| Rehab. Dept. in Suddie shared with Audiology |
 |
| Innovation at its best |
 |
| 1st room waiting area |
Pics of the Charity Dept.
 |
| 2nd room treatment beds |
 |
| Temporary filing system we implemented |
 |
| 3rd room with speech and treatment areas |
This is a very busy department and as you can see the space is very cluttered. There was equipment everywhere! Imagine 4 staff and 6 patients in this area at the same time. Due to the space limitations, a filing system had been attempted but unsuccessful. Our focus here became centred around departmental organization.
The department in Anna Regina was based in an old house. It was an open space. There was a living room with sofas, a full kitchen, bathroom and 3 bedrooms. There is no equipment kept here, and so it must be brought over each time.
Some more info regarding my placement:
My placement is funded by the EU under a project called ABLE, "Action for Building capacity, Learning together, and Empowering disable people in Guyana. It's a 4 year project that is now coming to its end. Consequently I will be the last OT, as there will be no CUSO/VSO replacement, nor a local trained OT.
Key stakeholders:
-CUSO/VSO
-Division of Rehabilitation Services of the Ministry of Health (MOH)
-National Commission on Disability (NCD)
-Guyana Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR)
-Eyecare Guyana
Two Key Result Areas:
1. Increased capacity of disabled people's organizations (DPOs) and NCD, build a strong rights-based disability movement which represents the views and priorities of people with disabilities is Guyana.
2. Increased access for disabled people to rehabilitation services, which addressed their needs.
While i'm here i'll be focusing on the following items:
- Developing the new OT department in the Georgetown Public Hospital, which is currently staffed by 2 RAs.
- Clinically supporting the RA's at David Rose School, Diamond School, Cheshire Home, and Ptolemy Reid Rehab. Centre Marid.
- Visiting regions 1 & 8. New departments that have never received any OT contact. There will possibly be follow up visits to other regions depending on time and funding.
