While Belize Natural Energy may be on the defensive as it tries to protect its revenue from a government in a serious cash crunch, the company today went on a public relations offensive, making good on its promise to put back into the community with donations to health, the environment and education today, Belize Natural Energy spearheaded the effort to deliver almost half a million dollars in medical supplies and equipment to the Western Regional Hospital in Belmopan. The donation includes EKG machines, defibrillators, nebulizers and operating room table and many other supplies. They are provided through Project Cure, based in Denver, Colorado. And while much of the equipment is used, Dr. Paul Allen explained that unlike other donations we've seen, it's not useless.
Dr. Paul Allen,
"What we're looking at is the response to a list of request from our healthcare providers in San Ignacio and in Belmopan, in the western region, and they put some needs together, that they need just to help them do their job a little better."
Jules Vasquez,
Often times we see these containers and they appear to be a bountiful gift but many times as it works out, the donations are not needs based or properly rationalized and oftentimes, unfortunately, Belize is used as a dumping ground for obsolete or outdated equipment and prescription.
Dr. Paul Allen,
"I think that's really a good comment and certainly one we've been very aware of this time. I think in this instance the BNE people came to ask us how they could help, they didn't tell us how they wanted to help us and so based on that request we were able to do the needs assessment and then ask them for the finance, not just to locate used equipment, but to make sure that we got the type we requested, that it was properly maintained, and when it reached here that it was going to be properly serviceable and useful for our patients to bring the quality care we need to Belizeans.
The needs were mostly for the operating theatre. Western Regional at the moment has one operating theatre and for example when we are doing an elective procedure and another emergency comes in, there's also a complication so we really wanted to provide some facility for operating on emergency with a second theatre area. This equipment will help us do that. It won't take us all the way, because of course we have to have staff and infrastructure, but this will take us a long way towards doing that and we think in a few months we will be able to have that second area."
