And Dr Cuellar wants his fellow board members to share his zero tolerance policy and encourage the others to speak up. This afternoon, the chairman of the board, Dr Andre Sosa, told us that he understands the ministry is frustrated, but ultimately, he's reserving his sympathies for the patients who are the real ones suffering. He said that with the pandemic, there is no time or energy for squabbling and hard feelings. And while right now, it is the ministry's responsibility to find the life-saving supplies, he believes this incident makes it clear that KHMH needs to be fully autonomous and deal with its own finances and procurement. Today via Zoom, he said he hopes the government will support this move and "run the money."
Dr. Andre Sosa - Chair, KHMH Board
"Other supplies we buy are needed and are as projected and we use our operation funds to procure those supplies. As we've been seeing over and again for the last 10 months, the cost of COVID is so onerous that it gives very little lee way for us for to pay staff and to purchase the medications as well. So, to this date we are about 5 million dollars, which substantial part of that responsibility lies with the central government."
Courtney Menzies
"But in the meanwhile, your having this disconnect with the ministry and then on top of it, rather than to help solve the problem, the minister is throwing you under the bus."
Dr. Andre Sosa
"We know what our responsibilities are and we think that certainly it's hard to be an independent entity if you don't control the monies that are expended to buy medications and supplies, I think the argument is a good one for the KHMH to really and truly to be given it's autonomy and if this isn't a strong argument for it, I don't see what else it can ever be. We are reaching out to other international partners in compliance with the mandate of the KHMH authority as stated in the KHMH act and we hope that outreach to other partners will enable us to have alternative sources for medication and supplies. We believe that indeed, KHMH needs to be independent, we believe that it needs to be autonomous and we are taking all the steps necessary to make that become a reality and we're asking the government of Belize to help us with that."
Courtney Menzies
"But in the meantime, what will the board do to try and bridge the gap between the KHMH and the ministry because clearly there's some disconnect happening there."
Dr. Andre Sosa
"Well, we are scientist, we prefer to deal with facts and figures, we believe the emotions to one side, there are enough soap operas about hospitals that you can watch in Netflix, so entertain yourselves by looking at those, we deal with hard facts here. People are dying everyday and that is unacceptable."
Courtney Menzies
"Will the hospital now set out to find it's own anestetic is the shortage and as well the monitors, will you now try to find your own since the minister already said it's in your hands now?"
Dr. Andre Sosa
"We are capable of doing the job, all we want is for them to run the money, so that we can do that."
