Guyana: Health Minister Dr Anthony attends health walk to raise awareness of autism disorder

Georgetown, Guyana: The Minister of Health of Guyana – Dr Frank Anthony, hosted a health walk to raise awareness of autism spectrum disorder across the country. The walk was hosted on April 23, 2023 (Sunday).

According to the update by the Ministry, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony, on Sunday morning, joined a group of medical professionals and civil society members on a health walk intended to raise awareness of autism spectrum disorder.

Minister Anthony, during his feature address, said that more needs to be done to help people better understand children who are uniquely different, as well as to screen for and identify early signs of autism.

He noted that a comprehensive network of people who can support Autistic patients needs to be developed to educate and offer support to parents/guardians, according to the social media update shared by the Ministry of Health of Guyana.

While assuring the audience that the Ministry will endeavour to expand its horizon on this disease, Dr Anthony stated that the Ministry had begun some classes for autistic patients at the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre.

“You now have a classroom where we can accommodate maybe about 30 or so students, and I know we have persons dropping the students off to spend a day with us, and we work with them, and we are going to continue to see how we can expand that level of service. But it’s something that I think is very important”, the Minister explained.

In closing, Minister Anthony said the Ministry is exploring options to have both professionals and volunteers trained who can offer support and aid for autism and other related illness.

“We have been talking to different people who have expertise in training, and hopefully, we’ll be able to get more persons coming in to offer training; therefore, maybe more volunteers can be trained and other professionals as well”, Dr Anthony stated.