Health Stakeholders in Belize Attend Training to Enhance Emergency Response

The Ministry of Health and Wellness in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is hosting a three-day training for health-sector stakeholders to improve Belize’s ability to respond to health emergencies and disasters. The sessions are being held at the Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza, where participants have been discussing the national response plan for emergencies to analyze its strengths and weaknesses. Lealou Reballos, PAHO’s Caribbean Advisor for Health Emergencies, explained that the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s Hurricane Lisa, gave the participants recent scenarios to look at in terms of the country’s disaster response. She highlighted a major area where experts feel Belize can improve when managing a disaster.

Lealou Reballos, Advisor, Health Emergencies (Caribbean) PAHO/WHO: “What we’re doing right now is doing a strategic risk assessment, those that are very, very relevant and important to the Ministry of Health and also in the other partners for the health sector. We’ve looked at yesterday the capacity of the health sector in terms of disaster management, disaster response and preparedness, and we’re very, very happy that most of the items that we’ve looked at there is a very good response from the participants and I think we’re really on track on ensuring that comes another emergency Belize and the health sector is quite prepared. And that’s one of the things that we would like to look at. Where are the strengths, but also look at some of the gaps that we have. And I think that’s where after this workshop we’re going to move forward with, but also identifying some of the strategic risk that the workshop is going to come up with. Among the gaps that we have seen, I think is the area of more coordination and inclusion of a lot more of the stakeholder. I think COVID has really given us a lot of those lessons learned. And I think it’s a very opportune time for the health sector in particular, but at the national level as well, you know, in areas where we really need to bring more actors because as we know it’s not just the business of the health sector when it comes to disaster and health emergencies in particular but it’s more really having the NEMO, the National Disaster Offices, the Met Service when it comes to some of the climatic issues, BAH is with us these three days so their really input on the strategic risk assessment workshop is very important. The universities, and we’re very happy to have University of Belize with us today. So those gaps that would have been highlighted by COVID and some of the recent emergencies like a Hurricane Lisa would have been kind of like discussed in this workshop and also the partnership that we could really strengthen more in working towards working together.”

Principal Health Inspector John Bodden explained that the country’s national health emergency response plan is over ten years old and needed to be reassessed in light of global changes. Bodden said that a major goal is to identify potential national health threats ahead of time and begin preparing for them.

John Bodden, Principal Health Inspector, Ministry of Health and Wellness: “Over the years we started to develop a plan and we started in 2012 to identify those threats that are imminent to the Ministry of Health or to the country itself and to identify and build capacities to ensure that we can respond in an effective manner. The highlight of the assessment is now identifying if there are new threats that exist for the country itself. And since 2012 we know that many things have changed. We have COVID, which is a different experience that we never had before. And actually, the impact was severe to Belize and many other countries globally. And so when we do this activity today, we will be looking at what are still threats that exist and what are new threats that now we have to look at to develop our capacities to respond to those events as we move forward.”

The training sessions began yesterday and ends on Thursday. Participants include the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO), the Belize Agricultural Health Authority (BAHA), and the University of Belize, among others.