Since Alvaro Rosado’s very public and bitter ouster in March of this year, the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital has been operating without a Chief Executive Officer. It may not sound like a big deal but it is when you consider that the KHMH is the national referral hospital and it is the nation’s largest tertiary care facility. And so today it was with some measure of relief that the new Board of Governors called a press conference to present the hospital’s new Chief Executive Officer.
He is Dr. Francis Gary Longsworth who was born in Belize, and educated in the Caribbean. He was the Director of Primary Health Care in the British Virgin Islands before returning to Belize in 2000 where he managed the Integral Health Care Services. He was there until he was chosen from a pool of six applicants for the top job at the nation’s largest hospital. He is a doctor and an administrator and he told us that at his KHMH, patients will come first.
Dr. Francis Gary Longsworth,
“I am happy to be here, at this time in this place and I am looking forward to a great adventure in this new job. We go right back to the hospital’s mission which is to become the premier referral hospital in Belize.
Once I got out of internships and the hospital programs I just gravitated towards public health and health administration. So I have been involved with that for many years and thoroughly enjoy it, love the challenges of setting up systems, maintaining systems, dealing with people, solving problems – I love to solve problems; get one out of the way and go to the other one. That’s what I like to do.
I have heard testimonies from individuals who have come to KHMH and have gotten very good service and didn’t expect it really so I think it is a challenge, we don’t sell ourselves enough. We need better public relations. I think that is where we need to go because I think everything is in place but we don’t sell ourselves very well.
I don’t know if it is fair to lay the blame for everything that has happened at the feet of the previous CEO. I wasn’t here for most of it but as I said problems happen in institutions and this is a large institution with a lot of different aspects to it that need constant monitoring, constant efforts at improvements and so on. All I can say is that it is going to take a lot of hard work and I am under no illusions about what I will have to do to try and accomplish the task.”
Dr. Longsworth assumes his post as CEO in mid-August. In the interim he says he will use the time to acquaint himself with the hospital’s staff and procedures. Laurel Grant will continue to act as CEO until he takes over. His contract is for two years.
And a major announcement at this afternoon’s press conference was that in about a month, Belizean Neurosurgeon Joel Cervantes who famously left the KHMH after a public squabble with then CEO Alvaro Rosado will be returning. That’s right, he was chased out by Rosado but the new board has rehired him.
One other outstanding issue is that of dialysis treatment. As viewers will recall, the Ministry of Health is still paying the Belize Health Care Partners to treat patients needing hemo-dialysis. The KHMH isn’t equipped to carry out the procedure but in the interim –the Ministry of Health says it is now negotiating with the Health Care Partners for a cheaper rate so those patients can be treated in Belize. As recently as three weeks ago government’s position was that it would be sending kidney patients to Mexico for cheaper treatment than was available at the Heath Care Partners.
