And today Ruiz was part of an MOU signing between the National Health Insurance - which falls under SSB - and the Belize Police Department. It's a pilot project that's been in the works for years which will see police officers with non-communicable diseases receive treatment from NHI at only 10% of the cost. In return, NHI clinics across Belize will receive enhanced security.
The project will start in the Southside precincts, particularly precincts 1, 2 and 4, but the Minister of Police hopes that it will be expanded to eventually cover all police officers.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"This is a very proud moment for me as Minister of Home Affairs, it has certainly been in the making for some time now but we have very aggressive officers who have been on this case, assistant commissioner of police, Howell Gillett, has certainly been pressing on behalf of the officers to get this MOU signed today so this is certainly a historic moment, it's the first time ever something like this is being done whereby some 500+ police officers attached to the Belize District formation will have access to primary health care services and as you rightly pointed out, we do face a lot of challenges, our officers, a lot of them suffer with hypertension, with diabetes, with obesity and to the primary care services that will be offered which also include a mental health aspect to it is certainly something that is much needed and in my opinion overdue and like I said in my presentation it is my hope that we can expand the enrolment of this program to all our police officers."
"In terms of the services that will be provided to our officers, mental health counselling is definitely one of them. a lot of our officers are going through very stressful times as you will imagine and like Paul was mentioning, many times we look at police officers not as human beings and that is a critical error because just like you and I, they have difficulties that they are facing, challenges that they are facing, and while we're asleep at night, they're out looking for our safety and security and so yes, mental health counselling is a critical part of the services that will be provided and it is my hope that like I said incrementally we'll be adding on officers and it is my hope that within 5-10 years, we'll have full enrolment in the NHI network."
And one of the officers pushing for this project was ACP Howell Gillett, who explained that the idea was formed after a violent incident near Matron Roberts. Over the years, though, NHI healthcare staff have complained about feeling unsafe, whether from criminals or even patients. The SSB CEO explained that now both institutions will benefit from this project, while the general manager of NHI, Dr Ramon Figueroa, explained what the officers will be doing to assist them.
ACP Howell Gillett, National Commander, Community Oriented Policing
"It started in 2018. If you could recall there were some shootings near Matron Roberts Clinic and at that time as the south side commander, we had to put a booth there on Magazine Road, because there were gang members from one area and from another area and they would come to.... Gang members also have issues and so they would meet up at the same clinic. It was so horrible that there was a murder occurring in that area and so we started to lobby the health ministry to see what could be done to work out some kind of partnership. Yes we want to lower crime at the same time. Police officers are human beings and they have health issues also."
Deborah Ruiz, CEO, Social Security
"Basically in a collaboration effort for mutual benefits, the police will offer security to the staff of the NHI clinics in the Southside and in return the police will be, through a pilot program, be getting medical treatment for non-communicable diseases, basically hypertension and diabetes, obesity and we're hoping for a little competition amongst the precincts so at the end of the day we will have a prize for the out coming participants in terms of their BMI and that sort of thing."
"The indications are that in the period we have been experiencing some violence at the clients and you know people come in and the staff feels insecure so that is why we reached out to the police and we offered."
Dr Ramon Figueroa, General Manager, NHI
"Most of the threats have occurred either at Matron Roberts, BMA, or BHP, Belize Healthcare Partners, remember the clinics are located in the Southside, everybody know that the Southside, you tend to have certain outbursts every once in a while and then we have had some actual patients that have threatened the doctors or nurses so those are the conditions under which they work every single day so they had expressed their concerns to us and that's why we had approached the police department to see how we can improve security at the different facilities."
Courtney Menzies:
"So what are the expectations, is it that they will be monitoring around, patrolling around, they will be on the grounds, what do you expect them to do?"
Dr Ramon Figueroa, General Manager, NHI
"A couple of things that we discussed, one, train the security people that we have in the facilities how to, what's the word, the deflate the crisis situation, how to handle the crisis situation. In areas that we have cameras, how to set up the cameras properly and how to monitor those, then also yes to patrol on a regular basis and then to have a contact person in case we have these incidents to be able to call and then get the kind of support that they need."
The project will be launched on April 1st.
