According to data for several important metrics, Guyana’s health sector is exhibiting significant advances, the president, Dr. Irfaan Ali, remarked on Wednesday. President Ali claims that during the previous few years, Guyana has achieved some progress in lowering child mortality.
At a press conference held at his Georgetown office, he said, “Child mortality has slowly improved and is currently the lowest it has ever been: 13 (deaths) per 1,000 births compared 19 (deaths) per 1,000 births in 2020. In essence, this indicates that fewer kids (between 0 and 5 years old) are passing away at a young age. The President also noted that more low-weight newborns, expectant moms, and new mothers are surviving.
He linked these gains to improvements in the healthcare sector and posited that the government will continue pursuing these improvements by investing more in new, modern facilities, training workers and ensuring there is a more efficient delivery of services.
In fact, he said some plans are already underway with the government funding six new regional hospitals across the country and upgrading several others. New speciality facilities are also being developed as the government expands training programmes for nurses and other healthcare workers.
And overall, Dr. Ali believes the country can increase its life expectancy to 75 years by 2030. This expectancy refers to the average number of years a person can expect to live and usually reflects the state of a country’s health sector. As it is now, he said Guyana’s life expectancy has increased from 68 years in 2020 to 70 years in 2023.
