In other news, Belize's national referral hospital is in a borderline financial crisis.
They're dealing with a backlog of unpaid medical bills by patients and a downturn in revenue after hospital services were cut back at the height of the pandemic.
It's a situation that can hopefully be resolved now that the worst of the pandemic is behind them, but the C.E.O. was cautious in outlining the situation, earlier today.
Chandra Nisbet Cansino, C.E.O. KHMH
"The hospital has opened for the most part for the clinics and the elective surgeries and so our financials are looking a little bit better but it will certainly take us a while with a lot of innovation and a lot of support from the general public for us to get back to where we want to be."
"We are currently doing everything we can to collect outstanding bills. We are prepared to accept payment plans from persons, so we will have to sit and evaluate that we are not in the process of seeing well these persons can pay and these persons can't pay yet. We are still in the process of moving forward trying to collect outstanding bills, you know, so that the hospital can function and we will have to cross that bridge when we get to it."
In related news, CABEI - which is the Central American Bank for Enterprise and Investment - has approved a 1 million US dollar technical cooperation grant to finance feasibility studies of hospital infrastructure and equipment projects in Belize.
The overall objective is to improve the quality of national healthcare services. Notably KHMH is not included in the review or planned upgrade.
