What future for the Canopée clinic in Cayenne?

In the medical desert of Guyana, a private hospital is struggling to open its doors. The Canopée clinic should have been delivered eighteen months ago. Located in the ZAC Hibiscus, in Cayenne, the establishment has still not opened. It lacks an essential safety approval.

“Since the start of its construction in 2021, this clinic has encountered difficulties with project management, then certain group members, recalls Daphné-Arnaud Charely, the director of the Canopée clinic. It should have been delivered in November 2023, but 18 months later, we still cannot operate this establishment intended to receive Guyanese patients.”

For three months, the clinic has been waiting for a visit from the safety commission. It must validate its capacity to accommodate patients.

In the meantime, despite brand new premises and a substantial technical platform, there is still no regular activity, apart from a few consultations. Since October, patients have been welcomed for outpatient consultations.

Not enough to ensure the financial income necessary for the establishment. “There is no financial balance, zero! Nothing!” annoys Claudia Béhary Laul Sirder, general director of the Rainbow Guyane group. She says the structure must open its doors as quickly as possible to survive.

The Canopé clinic houses a medical day hospital for adults and SMR children, medical care and rehabilitation beds, medical beds and palliative care beds for adults and children, a psychiatry unit, but also dialysis activities, radiology.

Medical staff are already present on site. “We recruited him, 90% of our doctors arrived on site, but they do not have the tools to practice their art, deplores Daphné-Arnaud Charely, director of the Canopée clinic. We also have physiotherapists, speech therapists, psychomotor therapists, all the staff to take care of children and the elderly.”

Faced with the threat of partial unemployment, the 250 employees are worried. “The desire of management is to maintain salaries, but it is a state of permanent stress for the moment”assures Corine Buzaré, president of the CSE of the Canopée clinic.

Within the Canopée clinic, this is not without consequences. “We have set up care for hospitalized patients at home with rehabilitators and other professionals who until now took care of them in day hospitals,” explains Daphné-Arnaud Charely, director of the Canopée clinic.

Saphir, 2 years old, is being monitored at home. A distressing situation for his mother. “My daughter has health problems, she has only one kidney, a heart problem, and she requires care, explains Saphir’s mother. I have no other solution, I hope the clinic will follow up.”