JOSEPH Torres, a hinterland beneficiary of the latest Guyana/Cuba scholarship agreement, has said he knows he can make a difference amongst the indigenous population of this country.
but I cannot do it on my own. I think I can influence people who work in the interior to study in areas such as medicine, he said in an exclusive Government Information Agency (GINA) interview.
Torres, from Wowetta in North Rupununi, Region Nine (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo), will pursue a General Medicine degree in Cuba from September.
He said: As a boy in Wowetta, I saw a number of people suffering when there was no need for them to suffer. There was no one to help them and that is why I chose to study medicine.
Joe, as he is familiarly called in his home circle, said he hopes to return, after studying in Cuba, to serve his fellow Amerindians in the hinterland.
Torres is happy that another awardee, Renita Cassimero from Aishalton, also in Region Nine, will take up physiotherapy in Cuba, too.
Torres, currently a medical technologist at Woodlands Hospital in Georgetown, said, despite the remoteness of the hinterland, the health sector there, especially in Wowetta, has improved significantly over the years.
When I was small, there was no health centre in Wowetta. But I can say there is a big one there now, he said.
Even though he feels that having such a centre is a major step towards providing primary health care, Torres knows it is the service rendered to the people which matters.
He supports the Community Health Workers (CHW) scheme and advanced vaccination programmes for them and notes that the personnel are moving on to microscopy, which would enable them to effectively diagnose and treat malaria, a disease prevalent in the hinterland.
Torres said, given the available resources, the health system in those parts is as good as it can be.
The 22-year-old said, when he comes back as a medical practitioner, he would venture into a rare field of practice, although he is not yet sure of his ultimate career goal.
He has already secured a post-graduate qualification in Medical Technology from University of Guyana, after a three-year course which, according to Torres, provided his foundation for health studies and qualified him for the Cuban scholarship. (Nadia DeAbreu - GINA).