Medical and Dental Practitioners Gather for 40th Annual Congress in Belize

Medical and dental practitioners from all over the country have been meeting for the past two days with their counterparts from Cuba, Mexico and the United States.  The meetings are part of the 40th annual congress of the Belize Medical and Dental Association. The three-day event is being held at the Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza, under the theme “Robust Primary Care: The Foundation to accessible, equitable and Quality Healthcare.” Dr. Perlita Aldana, President of the BMDA explained that the purpose of the meeting is to build the capacity of the participating doctors to improve the delivery of primary healthcare in Belize.

Dr.Perlita Aldana, President, BMDA: “This year we chose to talk about primary healthcare and how we can try to work towards getting a robust primary healthcare in Belize or at least what our association can help prepare a foundation for our doctors so that we can apport something better to our society. Our Belizeans deserve good healthcare, they deserve quality in their treatment that they receive and so today we took the time to work on that topic so that we set a foundation. We do have many issues affecting us from the way how we treat patients when they reach at the emergency care out district, we have patients who are suffering from kidney disease, hypertension, basic illnesses but here what we’re trying to do as I said is strengthen the way how we give treatment at the primary healthcare so it would be continuous, it would be quality service that we give.”

Among the presenters were Jose Aguiar Labrada a nephrologist who spoke on the importance of regular checkups to keep patients from reached advanced stages of kidney disease and Dr. Mauro Castello, a pediatric surgeon who addressed the issue of gastric obstruction in newborns.

Dr. Jose Aguiar Labrada, Nephrologist: “I presented a conference about diabetic kidney disease and I consider this very important for the primary care because it brings basically the necessary tools for the management in the primary care of our people. Here in Belize we have a lot of people affected with chronic kidney disease, it’s necessary that people take into account the necessary checkup and periodic evaluation first in the primary care and after with a nephrologist if it necessary because I think it’s very important the early diagnosis for the prevention of this type of disease. We have a lot of patients in this moment in the dialysis unit doing dialysis treatment and that is important that we create new strategies for prevention and diagnosis.”

Dr. Mauro Castello, Pediatric Surgeon: “I came on the invitation of BMDA to present the topic about my specialty which is pediatric surgery especially concerning neonatal intestinal obstruction because this is a topic that directly affects the lives of newborns and it is important for primary care to do an adequate approach of these babies to have good results in the future and to decrease infant mortality. It is important for professionals that receive these babies to identify when a birth defect is coming with the baby to properly direct these patients to a health institution that could take care of them. So I spoke about probably pitfalls that you an have to avoid it and red flags to identify these cases. So this is an activity to try to involve the primary care professionals to the care of these patients and to do a good practice.”

The congress began on Thursday and concludes tomorrow.