Prime Minister John Briceño Tours NHI Facilities in Orange Walk, Over 10,000 Residents Registered

PUP Standard Bearer for the Orange Walk Central division, John Briceno, toured the National Health Insurance facilities in that municipality.  The three facilities combined have seen more than ten thousand residents registered under NHI in the Orange Walk District.  During his visit yesterday, Briceno was able to speak to several patients as well as the medical practitioners.  He also toured each facility to see the equipment being used, the laboratory services offered, and the pharmacies.  Love News spoke with Briceno shortly after he concluded his tour.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “Mendes Clinic, they have, I think they said 15,700. The Reyes I think they have about 8,000 and the other one close to 8,000. So you have about 31,000 people that have been registered with NHI. People are benefiting from it and they are excited about the service. They like that you can come and you have these really modern facilities, you have very good service and as I was talking to all three doctors where they were telling us that because NHI set certain standards, service standards, and even the facilities the standards that they have that they have to keep, if not they’re penalized or they can lose their contract I think that makes a tremendous difference. And It started on a Said Musa. Unfortunately, the UDP did not give it any attention. We said that we believe that the NHI we need to expand it countrywide because then you ease the congestion in the hospitals and then because of these clinics the way they’re set up we could provide better service and that’s exactly what’s happening. I remember a few months ago when I was passing by Mendez, a family of four, husband and wife, two kids and the man as he saw me he said “Bwai John the best thing you. Less than $20 the four of us were treated.” They’re excited about it and because you give good accountability……”

Reporter: So that’s less than $20 for four? 

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “Yes, less. And they get medicines. And because the NHI keeps track of every medicine they’re giving up to the last pill, have to be accounted for, it creates efficiencies to the system and then people, when they come to the clinic,very, very rare if ever they hear “oh, we don’t have medicines.” Because it’s computerized. It’s tracked every day to ensure that they have. So I think that one of the hallmarks of this government, apart from the expansion of the great tremendous growth in the economy, also is the health sector and the NHI is right at the top of it.”

According to Briceno, the countrywide expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme, was made possible through the revenues earned from the Boledo sales.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “The other day I think they contributed close to $15 million to NHI. And imagine if the government had been controlling the Boledo from the start all of that money would have come to the people, the people that have benefited. Instead when you have just a family, you know, and a few people benefiting from all this money, and I think it’s a shame. It’s a shame that that happened and we, I know in cabinet people are getting impatient that they’re not, we didn’t take over the boledo I said but if that is what we want to do, we have to do it properly. We have to give the people notice to say that they have to comply. They did not comply and that is why we managed to cancel the contract legally and now we took that and put it into a company that’s owned 100% by the Government of Belize and all of the profits come to the people of Belize. We said initially that we want to use most of that money to go to help finance NHI but we also want to take a portion of it to be able to use it to do other social services like sports for instance that we want to assist.”

The three facilities visited were the Clinica Esperanza in Palmar, La Ascuncion Polyclinic and the Northern Medical plaza on Orchid Drive.