Last week we told you about the 7-day ultimatum that the Coalition of medical professionals had given the government of Belize to hold an urgent meeting.
That ultimatum came in a release which said that the coalition was quote: "taking the necessary actions" to correct, quote, "the failing state of our healthcare system."
The trouble is that the meeting that both PM Briceno and Minister Kevin Bernard were prepared to hold on Monday never materialized. Tonight, we know that the coalition allegedly told them that they just weren't ready. That left the all-important ultimatum and its consequences in the lurch.
And this morning when Channel 7's sunup hosts sat down with PM Minister Briceno they asked him where things stand now and what his government's position is on the coalition's long list of complaints.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I can understand the frustration of some of these doctors and nurses because they have been under tremendous pressure and strain since 2020 with COVID. Many of them have not, well the ones that work in the government health system, many of them have not even gotten a break."
"But I think that these medical doctors, they accusations they make I think it's not a fair accusation that they are making. The issue of medicines is something that has been there for 15 years, 13 years under the UDP and I never did hear them lashing out at the government> I never heard them giving them the previous government an ultimatum now here is a government now that is doing it's best to turn things around to fix this problem. We had an issue of shortage of medicines worldwide, we had an issue of our supplies, we had an issue, of shipping all of these things that have been happening, and thirdly then we had an issue on the length of time that was set from bidding to accepting the bid to be able to bring it. It took too long, the Ministry took too long, that's what we have been doing all along and just about a month ago Minister Bernard came to Cabinet with a paper on how we could shorten that time to I think three months to be able to open tenders and give the tenders within three months so that then we could get the medicines on time that's one but the fact is that today we are between 80 and 90% of the supplies in. They came in late but they are here so we no longer have that serious shortage but there may be a medicine or two that we haven't gotten yet but that's on it's way but most of, for the hurricane we had all of the medicines that we needed. So again that's a moot point, because we have the supplies."
"It's uncalled for, it's uncalled for because the Minister has attempted to meet with them, I attempted to meet with them when I heard this about two weeks ago I called one of the leaders and I said listen I can met with you on Monday let's just talk I mean with no agenda, let's talk and see what is the issue and then Monday morning they said no we can't meet yet because we have to come as a group and obviously some people are playing games. I asked to meet with them personally."
