The Diamond Regional Hospital is the first of the new six regional hospitals to offer inpatient care for psychiatric patients.
This was revealed during a recent interview with the Administrator, Dr Sheik Amir, who is proud of the hospital’s achievements.
“Right now, we are seeing more than we were catered for. We are the only facility of the six new hospitals that has psychiatric patients admitted…Of course we have to send them, like the very aggressive patients, to the GPHC but we do admit a few of them here, and we do manage them,” he told the Department of Public Information (DPI).
The Head Psychiatrist, Dr Andria Veeren, will soon start its mobile clinic on the very first Thursday of every month.
“The whole idea behind the mobile clinic is to reach patients who can’t come to the hospital, but not only patients who can’t reach the hospital, but patients who can be a little more violent and aggressive and are not as compliant with medication. So, you find a lot of times that they don’t have insight, so they are not aware that they are sick,” she told DPI.
The department also conducts regular checks on their patients to ensure that they are doing well.
“So, we don’t wait until their next appointment. We call them to check up on them, see how they are doing,” she stated.
In the past year, the department has seen some 2087 patients. These were either referrals from the Georgetown Public Hospital, other departments within the hospital, or walk-in patients.
The doctor was posted to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre in 2023, as part of the Ministry of Health’s efforts to decentralize that service. She also visits Kuru Kuru, Eccles, Herstelling, St Cuthberts, Supply and Soesdyke health centres.
The hospital has been continuing this service to the public, along with the others, ever since President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali officially commissioned the $6.6B state-of-the-art Diamond Regional Hospital, a landmark facility designed to deliver world-class healthcare services to thousands of Guyanese residents.
The hospital reflects the government’s ongoing commitment to modernising Guyana’s healthcare system and expanding equitable access to quality medical care for all citizens.
The hospital features 75 beds, 24-hour emergency and laboratory services, state-of-the-art imaging technologies (including CT scans, digital X-rays, and ultrasound), and three surgical theatres.
It also houses specialised care units such as the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), High Dependency Unit (HDU), neonatal care, and outpatient clinics for internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, paediatrics, ophthalmology, audiology, and dentistry.
President Ali highlighted that the hospital is a significant investment in the people of Guyana, part of a broader strategy to improve healthcare delivery, increase life expectancy, and ensure every citizen can access efficient, comfortable, and high-quality medical services.