Doobay’s Medical Centre opens school

Vickram OdittGeorgetown: The Doobay Medical Centre has opened a school where its students are trained in, among other things, phlebotomy, laboratory technology, and to become pharmaceutical assistants.

With its mandate to provide better health care for the Guyanese public, the Director Mr. Vickram Oditt, said training started last September, in commemoration of Doobay’s Medical Centre’s second anniversary.

He said the costs for classes are kept at a very minimal level and students are allowed to pay on a monthly basis.

Oditt said special lecturers were hired, as it was recognised that a number of students were poised and willing to learn when the registration date was announced.

He said several persons with hopes and expectations turned up and expressed their eagerness to learn.

Oditt declared that Doobay’s is a “Centre of Excellence” and it is important to keep its standards high, be it in academics or dialysis treatment.

He said classes are conducted in a comfortable classroom. However, with 105 students, they have to be held twice a day to accommodate everyone.

Oditt said the “modernised” classroom was made possible only because of donations from certain entities, for example, the television was donated by COURTS Guyana Inc, the panels by the St. Stanislaus Group, and furniture by Kissoon’s Store.

He acknowledged that, although similar classes are provided by the Ministry of Health, he is positive that employment opportunities will be given to Doobay’s students after they have completed their courses.

He said the latter group will be sitting a local as well as an external examination, so as to ensure employment if they decide to leave Guyana.

Oditt said the school, which is a non-profit organisation, has been registered with the Ministry of Health and functions mainly through donations, for which all donors are recognised and the accounts are audited.

He said the management is extremely proud of the progress that the institution has made in only two years of its existence, and in a matter of weeks construction will commence on the new hospital building.

Oditt also told the Chronicle that the expansion of the edifice will continue and the dialysis treatment will not stop as they would build around it and gradually join the structures.

He said, upon completion of the project, the centre will be a hospital comprising three storeys, inclusive of operating theatres and a pharmacy, among other health facilities.

“We are bringing medicine to[the] East Coast,” he pointed out, stating that the Renal Centre, presently, has 40 patients and Doobay’s is working closely with the private and public sectors as well as the Ministry of Health to provide proper health care.

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed, enabling Doobay’s to be financially assisted by the ministry and even offer services at a more reduced cost.

Only recently, equipment to operate a new renal centre at the Georgetown Public Hospital was donated by Doobay’s, in the effort to make health care better.