64 days and counting and a big kick in the teeth for health services in Guyana....around 3 o'clock this morning we received a phone call from Wayne's boss to tell us that the Ministry of Health building was on fire...as it was just one street away we went out onto the balcony to see flames ripping into the night sky...bearing in mind we are three stories up you can imagine how high the flames were.

To put the devastation into a bit more context, for those of you less familiar with the Guyana system, imagine that the NHS headquarters existed in one building and then imagine that every system, including accounts, personnel files, minister's workplans and budgets existed only in paper form, and are usually found sitting in piles on a variety of desks. All gone. Imagine then there are now no records centrally of national health workers working in Guyana, no records of budgets that have yet to be spent for the remainder of the year, no records of the contracts that have been passed to facilitate works to be done or activities to be completed, no records of the fact that I am owed 10,000 dollars (£35.00, a 1/5 of my salary) from activities already completed (OK OK probably not really a priority but I was looking forward to that being back in my pocket) but seriously this is a huge blow for the countries health service...it is any ones guess how long it will take for the ministry to get back on it's feet and working at the same capacity as it was only yesterday. There are already the obvious conspiracy stories...police have been quoted as saying that "devices" where found in the building. Corruption 'charges' are not new to the government or the ministry of health and last nights events have quickly fuelled more persons to believe that something was not quite as it should be within the ministry walls. Even if these previous allegations were untrue the potential for things to go horribly wrong now is very real...I can just hear it now " that was lost in the 2009 fire ". I wonder how long that will be used as a legitimate response to requests of accountability. Something I heard today was that the auditors were due to go in...it does make you wonder, but as I say all hearsay at the moment so who knows.

What it does mean for me is that it is more than likely that my last minute plans for activities may not now happen. I really hope that this is not the case but I guess and accept that the Ministry have plenty of other priorities to address. I was wondering today if this may be one of those awful lessons in life that may actually have a silver lining...maybe Guyana you will use this opportunity to move away from paper based systems and start over in the 21st century...only a thought.