Cayo District to Receive Expanded National Health Insurance in Coming Months

The Briceno Administration says it is expanding the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme to the Cayo District in the coming months. Since taking office, the administration has rolled out the program in various parts of the country by allocating additional funding. The government is now looking to establish an NHI authority and shift the program’s responsibility from the Ministry of Health and Wellness to the Ministry of Finance. On Friday, the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance John Briceno explained that the move seeks to ensure oversight and transparency as the program expands. 

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “It was always envisioned that there has to be a separation of functions. That NHI is a purchaser of services. And you can’t have the same group purchase services and monitoring. You want to separate those functions. This is a part of the whole health sector reform that was done by the IDB way back under the Said Musa administration. So unfortunately, when the UDP, when they were in government for the past 13 years, they did very little to expand NHI. We have been expanding NHI. We have covered now the entire district of Corozal and I need to point out with the very same budget that the UDP approved for just as it was I think Corozal Town and part of Corozal’s southwest, a portion of it a few villages were covered with that very same budget under our administration. NHI covered the entire district and expanded the services like mammograms and other tests. Now as we know we have come into, we’ve done now the Orange Walk District, now we’re finishing the Belize District we’re going on to the north side of Belize City, to San Pedro and the other villages and we expect that by next year we will go into the Cayo District to be able to try to cover the entire country under the National Health Insurance Program.”

Briceno went on to speak on the benefits of establishing the NHI authority and how the scheme will stimulate competition and lower the cost of services in the health sector.  

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “It’s important now to start to separate those functions. When we started, we had any social security under again under the previous PUP government. It was hoped that maybe somehow we could work with some people with social security to help with the funding. Obviously that never worked out from early. So all along Social Security was managing it, but it was costing us. We had to pay for the services that was being provided to manage that. So we have set up a unit, a group, that will now be able to manage the NHI program. And so I think we are about to introduce legislation for the National Health Insurance Authority so that then they’re going to be able to manage the entire NHI program. Now that we’re doing that, obviously there can be some sort of almost like duplication of services because now this is primary health care and our health system, Ministry of Health, provides that primary health care. Most of that services now is going to be provided by HHI. So obviously there has to be some changes in functions. The beauty about NHI is that it creates competition among the private sector and even the public sector. For instance, in Belize City on the South Side, you have Matron Roberts clinic that’s providing services in NHI and they’ve been doing an exceedingly good job which points out that under the right circumstances the public sector can compete with the private sector.”

Briceno noted that his government hopes to expand NHI to all districts next year.