New Low-Cost Healthcare Clinic Opens in Belize City Under NHI Scheme

Thousands of Belize City residents will now have to access primary health care at little to no cost at a new facility opened under the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. Last night, after months of construction, the Belize Medical Associates (BMA) unveiled its new clinic on Albert Hoy Avenue in the Belama Phase One area. The new facility will provide low-cost medical services ranging from consultations to screenings as well as pharmaceuticals. Minister of Health and Wellness Kevin Bernard indicated that the clinic’s opening is a part of the NHI scheme being rolled out across the country to ensure more Belizeans have access to quality healthcare. 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health: “NHI is a service that we’re providing primary care services to our population. And as you know we are rolling out NHI in other parts of the country and here in the northern part of Belize district, in the Belize City area especially, where BMA was able to win the tender is where we can make access to more quality healthcare. While we have our public facilities, we also need to ensure that citizens have access to other services within the private sector and this is how the partnership is built and I think that it’s important that while the Ministry of Health operates as the regulator setting the policies NHI being the purchaser of services from the provider then the BMA in this case is the provider of the services they all come together and be able to provide quality services of our Belizean people. So it’s a win-win situation. it costs a penny, as you would in layman terms I would say it just costs a penny for you to access quality healthcare. You imagine a pregnant woman, as I said, can access go to NHI get her ultrasound and pay probably a fraction of that which is about, sometimes in some cases, ten dollars, seven dollars. Where would you have heard that service would have been accessible before at that rate, while government is paying the service provider through now the support from the Belize Boledo funds we are now injecting money to help finance NHI services along with other funds that government through the Ministry of Health provides to NHI. So for me it is important to have been here to show support, at the same time it also allows us at the Ministry to see the quality of service that is being provided in the public sector.”

Dr. Victor Rosado, Chairman of the BMA’s Board of Directors, told Love News that the hospital applied for the contract to build the clinic and felt it was in line with BMA’s commitment to providing quality and affordable healthcare. 

Dr. Victor Rosado, Chairman, BMA Board of Directors: “Belize Medical Associates is the biggest and longest standing private health facility in the country. We just celebrated 37 years of being a private hospital in Belize. And so this is just another aspect of our commitment to provide healthcare for the wider sector of Belize’s population. We firmly believe that healthcare should be accessible, should be affordable and should be of a high quality. In this area of Belize City, we have a contract that we can register 12,000 participants and in two months we have 2,500 participants registered. To register for NHI all you need is a Belize Social Security Card. That is all you need. Once you have a Social Security Card and an address, we can register you. Let’s say you live in Orange Walk, let’s say you live in Cayo but you work in Belize City then you can register with us because this is where you will spend most of your time. So you don’t necessarily have to live in Belama or in Belize City for all intents and purposes. So remember the goal here is for national rollout so there will be NHI this year in the entire country of Belize. And so what NHI has allowed that you can transfer from one clinic to the next. Let’s say you were registered in, you know, Orange Walk but now you’re living in Belize so you can transfer once a year to another clinic. So that’s important.”
 

The clinic is now officially open to the public.