And while that shocking patricide captured tonight's headline, the biggest buzz in the news continues to be about the senior shakeup at the Ministry of Health. It saw the Health Minister of the past 14 months, Michel Chebat re-assigned to the low-key Ministry of Public Utilities and Logistics, and replaced by former Minister of Youth, Sports, and E-governance, Kevin Bernard.
Bernard, who is a first time Minister has a hug responsibility to take up. He enters a ministry, essentially, with no senior leadership in place: there's no CEO, and the DHS has been declared redundant, which would mean his deputy is also redundant. That's at the top level - and, below that, public officers are demoralized, and according to the reports we get from insider, virtually cowering at a culture of bullying and intimidation that had come to plague the Ministry under Chebat's tenure. We have this general sentiment corroborated by multiple sources.
And, so now, it all falls to Kevin Bernard - and, he's nothing if not optimistic. Cherisse Halsall spoke to him yesterday a few hours after he got the call from the PM:
Hon. Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"I want to thank the Prime Minister for expressing the confidence he has in me to lead a ministry such as the Ministry of health especially in the midst of a pandemic but I will say this just like every job I have done before. I go into it with focus and energy with a mindset that we want to see things differently, we want to see things better and in the case of the Ministry of Health while I can tell you that the Minister, the former Minister of Health Chebat has done a great job in terms of many of the things that have been done in the Ministry of health there are a lot of challenges. I will go in there with renewed energy, just as I did with the Ministry of youth sports and E-governance but I also believe that my utmost goal is to surround myself with the right people, the technical people and to heed the advice. One thing I can say in leadership is that you just don't only lead from top to bottom but that you lead also from bottom up. You need to be able to listen to everybody around you, get the right advice, I am no doctor but you have to be able to listen to the legal experts that will guide the best manner in which we can lead this ministry. We are in the middle of OMICRON, we don't know what other variant will come to this country. We are poised as a government to ensure that we can do our utmost best to reduce the effects of COVID in this country and the health of our nation but at the same time to turn things around as it relates to the services provided by all of our facilities publicly here in Belize. So I am confident, I'm optimistic that while this is a new chapter in my political career I am prepared to do the job set out by the Prime Minister to me."
