The Health of A Nation is more critical than the Wealth of A Nation – Will Durant. Guyana is undoubtedly a country that is rich in all types of natural resources, but the most important is that of its human resources. The developed Health and Wellness sector is reflective of the interconnectivity of a cohesive and comprehensive development strategy that we required across almost all of the significant areas of development. The lack of a clearly defined health and wellness infrastructure of note in Guyana means that there are tremendous opportunities to leapfrog with the application of Health Innovation methodologies utilizing the GSE cloud-based platform. Guyana has a chance to build a new Technological Infrastructure that incorporates a 5G network into an almost unlimited cloud-based platform where, according to Forbes, Artificial Intelligence (AI), design thinking, robotics, and big data have made a splash across all industries. Still, perhaps their most significant impact is in healthcare.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in comparison to the rest of the nations of the world’s healthcare systems, Guyana ranked 128 out of 190 countries. Although the healthcare system of Guyana is both public and private, the predominance of healthcare expenditures is public, representing 4.88 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is very low. Compared to its CARICOM counterpart countries, Guyana’s healthcare system is subpar with those who can afford it traveling to neighboring Trinidad, Cuba, or the USA for medical care. The shortage of nurses in Guyana is a direct result of migration to those CARICOM countries and the USA, where wages, salaries, and facilities are significantly better. The medical infrastructure in Guyana is severely challenged, with the lack of updated medical equipment and facilities at some 30 public hospitals and health centers scattered throughout a country that is larger than England and Scotland combined. The healthcare infrastructure can easily be improved with more financial resources that may not be readily available from the public sector. The GSE community/solutions based platform will take it back to when most communities in Guyana had a resident midwife that was primarily responsible for prenatal, delivery, and postnatal care for most of the babies in the village or community. The GSE model calls for a nurse practitioner available on call 24/7; the registered nurse practitioner we will vet for access for secure access to private patient information on the cloud-based platform. GSE, we are convinced that the application of secure data connection and accessibility through mobile communications devises like the smartphones, we can reduce the coverage population of one health center per 10,000 to one per 5,000. The smaller and more adaptable community-based health centers may also serve as the residence of the healthcare practitioner, an added incentive of free or reduced rent or the practitioner. The smaller, modern (vibrant colored) Healthcare Centers, with an average construction cost of between $15,000 and $20,000USD or 3 to 4MGYD would be an ideal model. The smaller construct of the contemporary community-based healthcare center is more relevant because there will not be the need for on-premises filing cabinets for the storage of patients’ information and less need for a larger patient waiting area.

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) is another healthcare infrastructural challenged areas in Guyana because of the lack of necessary resources. Guyana installed a new state of the art 911 system in 2017. However, an EMS system is only as good as the equipment and personnel that can respond to the emergency. An advance Live Support (ALS) EMS system requires the development Global Positioning Satelite (GPS) mapped roads, the vehicles, the mechanics, the spare parts, the landlines, the street names or house numbers, most of which a developing nation like Guyana does not have. Guyana’s best way of preventing premature death in emergencies is through a community-based Basic Live Support (BLS) system. The most common emergency response requirements in Guyana are Crime and Road Accidents. It is rear in Georgetown, where most of the ambulances in Guyana are concentrated, for there to be a legitimate EMS response to a cardiac arrest (heart attack), a mother in labor, or an asthma attack. Crime is a rather broad area, but the statistics have shown that although crime is down in Guyana, murder is up. It can be contended that more weapons, guns, and knives, are now more often being used in the commission of crimes in Guyana. Still, with even with at being the case, many of those inflicted with wounds for guns, knives or the cutlass can be saved if there are rapid and life-saving techniques to the wounded. But in most instances, it would be a taxi cab driver or good samaritan with a vehicle that is the first responder to the schene of a crime or accident who instinctively rushes the victims to the closest hospital, and often bleed and DOA.

There is a similar occurrence with auto accidents in Guyana, where like the crime situation, there is the convergence of social and infrastructural issues. The infrastructural problems are that there has been an explosion in the number of vehicles and drivers, and the roads and traffic management have not caught up with the growth. Additionally, many riders and drivers have not caught up with the life-saving habit of “Buckling Up” when in a moving vehicle. Recently six citizens were killed in one accident involving a private car and a siren police vehicle, a proper triage was not established around the scene of the accident, and most of the victims perished.

The GSE Community-based approach to EMS is a developmental model that seeks to integrate a Basic Life Support (BLS) with an App to Cloud infrastructure. Apart from the GSE Cloud-based platform, our App that is adaptive to mobile technology will be segmented to cover the primary areas of the Social Enterprise, which are ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, AGRIBUSINESS, EDUCATION, and HEALTH & WELLNESS. The Health and Wellness segment of the GSE App, having a 911 component, users will be able to text in emergency calls and upload pictures to the EMS platform, which we believe will provide the first responding personnel with location information and other pertinent data. Another example of the GSE App working in the coordination of a BLS would be that of Child Birth. Since most citizens would have already been registered with the community-based healthcare center and assigned to doctor and nurse practitioner with their data securely stored in the cloud-based application. An expecting mother, for example, is to be will be moved to a select category where they will receive prenatal care alerts throughout the term of the pregnancy and finally the ability to send out an alarm at the onset of labor. Our community-based BLS solution calls for select community-based Taxi Cab Drivers and Service that are trained in administering basic life-saving techniques, and for their taxis cabs being equipt with First Ad kits. For in Guyana, there is a higher probability that a taxi cab may be more readily available than an ambulance as a first responder. We will be advocating for members of the security services, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) that live in any given community to are trained and certified life-saving techniques and triaging. Most of the BLS training modules could be delivered via the GSE Platform in a basic webinar format. Only those who are trained and certified will be able to receive text alerts from the EMS 911 system via the GSE App. Similar training modules will be developed for a community-based team of social health volunteers. The GSE Social Wellness Team is formulated and developed around the Nurse Practitioner and a paid social worker based at each of the community-based health centers. Additionally, the nurse and social working will have an assignment to the schools in the community. The goal is to create socially cohesive health and wellness pockets of concentration in each community.

Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity – World Health Organization (WHO). In 2019, a twelve-year-old girl committed suicide in Guyana.