And while there are meetings and reports and endless press conferences....what really are the issues? As in any spat between long time partners, there are many. This week alone, there have been four hours of press conferences – and probably an equal number of hours recounting and discussing the issues on the news and talk shows. Tonight, we’ll try and distill them down to their essence. It’s a daunting task, because so much has been said, so many accusations made, so many pieces of evidence cited..... Indeed all this talk of dopamine, salbutamol and omeprazole has induced in us a kind of pharmaceutical fatigue....
What’s does it all mean? And more importantly, who’s wining the public relations battle? We’ll have a possible answer to that from the streets shortly. But first, we look at what the medical professionals might call the “corpus” – the body of evidence, allegations and counter allegations, hardlines and hard charging, four and a half hours of finger pointing, blame laying, mixed in with one heart rending performance, distilled down to seven minutes.
Dr. John Sosa, BMDU President
“The company is MC Pharmaceuticals and it says billed to KHMH.”
Dr. Ricardo Fabro, KHMH Chairman
“He says to “Billed to KHMH.” I think if he would know the process of Quickbooks, quickbooks once you do an invoice it would say billed to. That is a process for accountability. It is not a process that was being used to charge Karl Heusner. Here I have for you a copy of the check which shows payment from the government of Belize for that said invoice. I guess it is no news that we were awarded a tender last year and it is no news again that we were not awarded a tender this year.”
Dr. John Sosa,
“Originally the contract was $77,000. Material provided was of poor quality. The doctors complained. They still increased it to $700,000 in spite of the poor quality material that never did work. It was $700.000 wasted.”
Dr. Peter Allen, CEO – Ministry of Health
“The evaluation committee sent preliminary recommendations to the Ministry of Health suggesting a $77,000 contract. Looking to purchase products at a better price, the committee was asked to review changes not just in that contract but throughout about two thousand items. And the committee was asked to review changes which would offer substantial savings to the overall tender. After discussions then with the tender committee a final contract value of $770,000 was agreed. There were indeed quality issues relating to some of the items on this contract and that company was not issued any contract in the 2009 to 2010 contract tender process.”
Dr. Beatriz Thompson, BMDU
“This is the equipment that surgeons and gynaecologists work with at the operating room, this is what they do the surgeries with. You see these
instruments how they look, that is what they work with. Yes they look rusty. It is not fair for the poor man to get that kind of instrument.”
Laura Tucker-Longsworth, KHMH Board Vice-Chairman
“The union displayed some instruments in the media yesterday and suggested that derelict instruments are perhaps the common type of instruments available and being used in the theatre and other parts of the hospital. How is this justified and the question then is why on earth did they continue to use it.”
Dr. Francis Gary Longsworth, KHMH – CEO
“The instruments were discolored and this is something we have known is a problem with our instruments from time to time because of the type of solutions we have been using in the past to clean and sterilize the instruments. We have
been told on more than occasions by visiting technicians that we are using the wrong solutions, that we have been using the wrong solutions on many of our equipment and machines.”
Laura Tucker-Longsworth,
“There have been reports from the public that patients are being forced into paying private fees for faster access for certain kind of services in the hospital. The public might find it interesting to know that over a five year period over $1 million have been paid to physicians for private practice within the hospital. The board conducted a study and determined that the private ward was actually creating a little cash cow for the physicians.”
Dr. John Sosa,
“Can they tell us which other doctors are making money off the hospital? Do any other doctors sell them pills, medication like De La Fuente does for the majority of stuff they buy?”
Dr. Martha Habet, BMDU
“It is not because we hustled before and we want to hustle now, I personally and none of us here hustle before or after, never.”
Laura Tucker-Longsworth,
“Various supplies were purchased from a company owned by persons or
person in the hospital for the period of 2006 to 2008 to the tune of $218,000. Sutures bought during that period cost $357 but today we are paying $175.”
Dr. John Sosa,
“Dr. Guerra sells sutures directly to the hospital and has done so on four or five previous occasions when the hospital runs out and cannot find anywhere. How does he do it? He calls his daughters in Guatemala, they go to a pharmacy to buy it, they send it to Melchor, he goes to Melchor, picks it up, and brings it to the hospital. So that includes a cost that will go up. He says it is around $300 but he is buying from a pharmacy and he is about the fourth or fifth person in line that they will look for and he has done it four or five times and that is the truth.”
Dr. Beatriz Thompson,
“The Chairman of the Board Ricardo Fabro be terminated depending on the outcome of the audit from the board the Chief Executive Officer Dr. Francis Longsworth, the financial administrator Mr. Carlos Perrera be suspended from office respectively until the enquiry is finished and reported.”
Maria Elena Sylvester, KHMH Board Member
“The easiest thing for us to do is to fire the chairman, fire the CEO, fire the Financial Director, and then how do you look at yourself in the mirror.”
Jules Vasquez,
The administration I should say of their own accord will not remove anybody, will not adhere to your dictates or the dictates of the Medical and Dental Union. What will you all do next?
Dr. John Sosa,
“We have a process to follow. We have the Labour Commissioner meeting hopefully tomorrow as a group of union executives hopefully the one on Monday but the union reserves the right to decide what it has to do.”
Dr. Peter Allen, CEO – Ministry of Health
“Please, I don’t know how to beg anymore. Let us use the process. I implore anyone: let us not judge based on allegations alone. Allow the investigation, analyze the information and make judgement based on substantiated facts and hard evidence.”
