Since 1982 the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired has been working with the Ministry of Health to provide free or very affordable eye care services. In those 25 years BCVI has gone from providing primary eye care such as simple screening to prevention and tertiary level eye care at clinics around the country. The partnership has been symbiotic - BVCI provides the technical expertise and GOB does its part by hosting clinics at regional hospitals. Today that partnership between GOB and BCVI was strengthened with the signing of a new memorandum of understanding. BCVI's Executive Director Joan Musa signed for BCVI and Health Minister Jose Coye signed on behalf of the government of Belize.
Joan Musa, BCVI - Executive Director
"It does outline what our relationship is with our satellite clinics, with our use of the government facilities, and how much they are prepared to give us and what we are prepared to bring also to the partnership.
We work very closely with the Public Health Department, we have a very good Public Health Department, the public health nurses do a very wonderful job with the vaccinations so this is the ideal time to find out when the child comes to the baby clinic if they have other problems and they will notify us very quickly.
At the higher level, if people need surgery, the Ministry of Health provides nurses at our surgical unit here in Belize City which is right next to the Karl Heusner Hospital. They also allow us to do surgery in the peripheral areas in district hospitals. So it is a very close partnership where we don't sort of, 'well this costs so much or that costs so much,' it is very much that we have the resources and we share them between each other."
