Minister of Health Kevin Bernard, he's a busy busy man, so busy in fact that when we asked him for an interview this morning as he exited Belize's annual nurse's conference he had to decline on the grounds that he was off to his next appointment and just didn't have the time.
But rather than take no for an answer our news team decided to walk with the minister to his car, all the while getting as many answers as we could from him on everything from virtually useless monkeypox vaccines in storage to edibles outrage, in just about 3 minutes. Here's a look at that exchange:
Cherisse Halsall:
"We need to ask you about this monkey pox vaccine. We have it here in the country, but we don't imagine that it ever be use."
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"I think you need to contact doctor Beer for her to provide you information. Those monkey pox vaccine was in country. we did not have any monkey pox issue, so I think we should be glad that we don't have Monkey pox."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir, the air quality in the west, what's going on with that? There is a task force thats been assemble to take care of the children suffering."
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"I understand and we know through our ministry of public health we are working together along with the department of environment to see how we could address that issue. I was a concern brought up at cabinet as well and we have a team out there looking at the assessment and see how we can assist and work on that in trying to reduce that issue. It is affecting young people; it is affecting everybody."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir, edibles, there were no comments from the ministry when that happened - all these children suffering from being so high from marijuana-laced gummies."
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"I don't think that your statement is fair. The ministry worked along with the government of Belize to take out a statement. So that statement was prepared by the ministry of health along with the prime minister's office and we have been very much clear in the position. In fact, when that issue occurred the CEO at the KHMH spoke on behalf of the ministry in that case and said that we were ensuring that the necessary steps were taken to address that problem. In fact, we have gone further to accelerate our food in healthy school initiative in which we have said we had already passed in cabinet, Legislations are now being reviewed to see how we can make sure that within the next 6 months that can come to the house."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir, do you have any knowledge that there will be any long-term effects of the children that suffered from that?"
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"Not that I know of. I believe that the children that had that issue were taken care of. We are celebrating nurse's week and as I said to them these few days that they did what they needed to do to help to protect those children. It's a sad issue that occurred and I hope that whoever were the accomplice of those issues that they are dealt with by the law."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir, lastly. Shortage of medical specialist, they are leaving the country in droves. We've seen this at the KHMH recently. Are doctors just worn out?"
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"When you talk about shortages of medical specialist, shortage of nurses, it's a global phenomenon. It's happening around the world and not only in Belize and we have been talking about this every single day, but let me also say that as you're talking about nurses as well which is one of the biggest challenge, last year alone we create over 200 posts. 95% of those posts were filled and we are constantly trying to - we are providing scholarships this year again; we are going to be providing more scholarships for nurses. We know the time it takes for them to complete that program, but that is the reason why we need to fill those gaps."
"In fact, at the last conference that I was in Bahamas, that was one of the critical discussions that we were having and I know at the world health assembly, that's another topic that will be discussed. We are the ministry are doing whatever we can to ensure that we could try and find persons. We have issues in pharmacy at the same time. We need to do what we can to ensure that we could, 1) reduce the burnouts that our medical professionals, our front-line healthcare professionals and our nurses who we appreciate the work that they did especially during covid. So we have to do more to invest in our nurses, to invest in nursing and to invest and making sure that we could attract other persons to come and work in the public sector."
"We understand the struggle, we understand the situation, but we are doing at the ministry, we are putting our very best effort to ensure that we could go to cabinet, put out some of these requests and hopefully that we get the support and I'm pretty sure we will get the support."
According to Director of Public Health and Wellness Dr Melissa Diaz, Monkey Pox vaccines are in the Ministry of Health's storage facilities, they expire in September 2025. She did not specify how many - but we're told they number in the thousands.
