Minister of Human Services and Social Security Dr. Vindhya Persaud is calling for urgent reforms in the handling of abuse cases, warning that a pervasive “push-around culture” within the system particularly around the timely completion of medical examinations is causing cases to collapse before they ever get a fair hearing in court.
Speaking during a visit to Region Five on Tuesday, Minister Persaud said the problem is especially acute in cases of sexual violence, where medical evidence must be gathered within a specific timeframe to retain its evidentiary value.
“If they’re not done within a certain timeframe, they have no value. You all know this; the medical professionals know this. What we have happening is that there is a push-around,” she said.
The Minister described a troubling pattern in which children and adult complainants are being shuffled from one place to another when attempting to access medical examinations delays that directly compromise the strength of cases when they reach the courts.
“When children or complainants go, there’s a push-around to get medicals, especially in sexual cases. So we need to do better with this, but the intention is to make the case report strong. A report has to go to court,” Persaud stressed.
She was equally critical of the quality of medical reports being produced, warning that incomplete or poorly written documentation can be just as damaging as delayed examinations.
“If a report has gaps, if a report is not sound, the case goes downhill before anything. That’s what they depend on. You can’t leave things missing from a medical report and hope to go back and remember what happened. Too many cases go downhill because of poorly written reports and medicals done long after the fact. So I think this needs to be fixed now. We can’t wait; this has to be fixed now,” she emphasised.
The urgency of the Minister’s call is underscored by the scale of the problem. According to statistics from the Ministry’s Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Policy Unit, Guyana recorded over 300 abuse cases in April 2025 alone, with sexual abuse cases being recorded on a monthly basis across the country.
Minister Persaud made clear that the current state of affairs is unacceptable and that systemic improvements in how abuse cases are processed from the moment a complaint is made to the preparation of medical documentation must be addressed without further delay.
