Long dormant caesium units may soon be in use
Stabroek News
April 27, 2004
After years of sitting dormant in the compound of the Georgetown Public Hospital, the two caesium units to treat cervical cancer might be up and running soon.
A Barbadian physicist was expected in Guyana over the weekend to examine the two units and once everything is okay the machines would be set up.
Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy made this disclosure during a recent interview with Stabroek News but explained that they would still have to employ an oncologist to help train doctors in how to use the units.
The minister stated that while some local doctors have knowledge on how the units are operated they are not oncologists and it would be safer to have such a person to begin with.
The units were bought some four years ago with the assistance of US$20,000 from the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana (CIOG) and have been stored at the hospital ever since.
They are used to treat women with cancer of the cervix and if put into operation then the money used to send these women overseas for treatment could be used to treat other types of cancer.
A public row developed last year between Dr M Y Bacchus, adviser to CIOG and the minister over the time the units were taking to be used and also reports that they might not be used at all. The physicist had been expected several months ago to inspect the equipment.
Ramsammy recently told Stabroek News that the ministry had been trying to get the physicist and the oncologist to come to Guyana at the same time but it was not possible.
According to him, to find another oncologist in the region is not difficult since there are several. However, there are not many physicists and now that they have located one, things should be on stream soon.
"The physicist is coming to set it [the units] up, the doctor is going to utilise it to actually treat patients. We have several doctors who have used caesium units before, but they don't have the kind of experience and they are not oncologists."
He said the oncologist would be hired for the short-term to set up a protocol that would be followed by the local doctors.
And even after the units are utilised by the local doctors, Ramsammy said that he is exploring the idea to have an oncologist visiting periodically, "so that he or she could come for two three days every other month, every three months. They see the patients that we have listed by our local doctors and he or she could make the adjustment of treatment that is delivered locally."
He said that it should just take days for the units to be set up once all is in order.
While conceding that it appeared as if the ministry was not making any progress with the caesium units, he says it has made progress in other areas including the establishment of a Cancer Treatment Committee at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
The committee comprises persons from the hospital and private doctors and they are working on developing a single cancer programme for Guyana.
He said the committee has come up with a chemotherapy component but he noted that the drugs are extremely expensive.
Ramsammy said that this year the government has pledged $70 million to purchase cancer drugs and some of this money would be used to purchase the drugs for chemotherapy.
He explained that patients would be given cancer treatment free and those in the private institutions would pay for all the other services but would not pay for the drugs which "will be provided either free or at a subsidised cost."
He said that the programme still has to be fine-tuned before it is put into motion.