Since January 1, 2025, health in Guyana has taken a step forward in its health organization with the official creation of its University Hospital Center (CHU).
This new establishment brings together the public hospitals of Cayenne, Kourou and Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, as well as local hospitals in isolated communities.
Strengthen the healthcare offer
This new health entity aims to strengthen the provision of care and training at the local level and to promote medical research in the region.
For the moment, this is a first administrative step, explains Christophe Bouriat, director of CHUG.
On December 31, we have a first step. We truly have a GCS health establishment that has been created. This legal vector will then be labeled a regional hospital center, probably at the end of the first quarter of 2025 and then we will enter into an agreement with the University of Guyana to become a CHU. It’s an administrative step and behind it there is everything else that follows of course.
Train healthcare professionals on site
The CHUG aims to train health professionals on site to avoid turnover, explains Christophe Bouriat.
-To try to counter this phenomenon of turnover, what is expected of the CHU is also to be able to train Guyanese on site to become doctors, nurses, caregivers, radio technicians, physiotherapists, etc. When we question young Guyanese in schools, we realize that they want to work in health. But often, what slows down their momentum is that they have to leave, go to mainland France or another overseas department. There is a break and a cost, and not everyone wants to afford it. What we want is to offer young Guyanese the opportunity to live and work in Guyana and the population the opportunity to have quality care with staff who know the field.
The buildings of the future Population Health Institute in the Amazon and that of the Consultation Center should be delivered soon to Cayenne.
The CHUG is not intended to be “cayennocentric” specifies the director of CHUG.
We do not want to centralize medicine or medical activity in one of the establishments. It is a multi-site university hospital. The three hospital sites will be university-based. We have three establishments of different sizes. What we want, and it is in the DNA of this CHU, is that everyone can continue to exercise and take their part in care. The response to the health needs of the population will not be done only on one site, only on Cayenne or only on the hospital center of West Guyana or only on Kourou, but it must be done within the framework of territorialized sectors on the three establishments and extending to the departmental health prevention centers and local hospitals.
Note that the creation of the CHUG will have cost 110 million euros.
