GEORGETOWN – The Chief Executive Officer of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC), Robbie Rambarran, yesterday, unleashed a stunning and deeply troubling accusation, claiming that a “worrying trend” has seen high-risk maternal patients transferred from private hospitals to the public institution only when it is “too late” to save them.
Rambarran disclosed that the GPHC has already recorded nine maternal deaths this year, an increase over the eight recorded in 2024, and he claims a large percentage of those fatalities were patients who arrived at the GPHC in a critical state, having never been under the public hospital’s care.
The “Dumping” Allegation
The CEO did not mince words about the source of the increase in tragic outcomes: “A lot of those patients that died came from other hospitals, were never under our care and they were referred to us.
They were referred in some critical state,” he stated. Rambarran directly suggested the prevailing suspicion is that some private hospitals are allegedly transferring their most critical, high-risk patients to the Georgetown Hospital, effectively offloading liability for likely deaths.
Medical Council Intervention
In a strong move signaling the seriousness of the issue, Rambarran announced that the majority of the maternal death reviews are complete. He revealed he is taking decisive action: “I have took the decision to forward some of these reviews to the medical council because some of them would really need some sort of intervention.”
This move puts the conduct of specific medical practitioners and private facilities under the scrutiny of the Guyana Medical Council, the regulatory body responsible for upholding professional conduct and standards.
The GPHC maintains that it is making significant improvements in Maternal and Neonatal Care and continues to record fewer deaths compared to the number of critical cases it handles.
However, the CEO’s explosive claim shines a harsh light on a critical rift in Guyana’s two-tiered healthcare system, suggesting that the public hospital is being left to shoulder the moral and statistical burden of cases that other facilities deem unsalvageable.
