One week after San Pedro's first private hospital was inaugurated, ground was broken today for their first public hospital. The San Pedro General Hospital will provide both primary and secondary care to the growing community which has had to live decades without a proper hospital - and not to mention the tourists needing emergency services and were unable to get it.
But now construction can get started on a state of the art hospital that will service both Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker. Courtney Menzies was at the ceremony today and has this story.
San Pedro is the fastest growing town in Belize, with over 20,000 residents and thousands of visitors at any given point. That means that a fully functioning hospital for the island is long overdue, especially since currently whenever there is an emergency, patients have to be airlifted to Belize City.
The MOU was signed a year ago, but the prime minister says this hospital has been in the works for the past decade, and is now finally coming to fruition. Plans actually started to firm up two years ago during the PM's visit to Taiwan.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"It's probably about ten years in the making because the previous governments in successive years, they put in their budget that they were going to build a hospital in Belize and that was never done. When I visited Taiwan in early 2021, one of the things that, in our discussions with the president, we spoke about the urgency in building a hospital here in San Pedro. San Pedro is the tourism mecca and we do not have a hospital and she quickly saw what we were talking about and in that visit they agreed that they were going to give us a grant for 33 million Belize dollars for us to be able to build the hospital and we believe with that budget we should be able to visit a hospital that can provide the necessary service that the people of San Pedro and of course Caye Caulker deserve."
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"It is a long overdue project and indeed something significant today in this very important initiative thanks to the support of the people of the Government of Taiwan and the efforts of our prime minister in making this possible. For me, and I know for the residents of San Pedro and Caye Caulker, this signifies, as I had mentioned, the embodiment of hope and progress. It's been quite long overdue and I know that the residents of this island and the Caye Caulker resident surely are happy for us to do the official groundbreaking today, the work officially now starts."
Andre Perez, Area Rep, Belize Rural South
"I recall at the sitting of the House when it was announced, when the prime minister was in Taiwan I'd gotten the news that he had secured the grant for this hospital, so I was like a little boy just getting a Christmas gift, you can't wait till the Christmas gifts come. So I recall that day, very special, and after one day, a little more, 18 months, I'm counting, finally it's here, the designs everything, working on it, we secured the land, the negotiations, so special day, historic, and I'm very grateful."
But Belize's healthcare system has major kinks as it relates to human resources. Already, there's a shortage of health professionals, with many of them opting to go abroad. So how will the government staff this hospital? The Minister of Health says he is already working on it.
Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health
"Remember the issue of San Pedro, the need for staffing a Human Resources is always a big issues. We're already starting the process in terms of creating the post that will be necessary to fill the human resource that will be required here at the general hospital. In conjunction with the polyclinic, we are looking at what steps we will take in terms of the polyclinic for that to possible become the polyclinic that will provide the NHI service and then the general hospital, but trust me, the ministry is seriously working and just yesterday the World Bank did it's public expenditure review which highlighted the need for investments in health and you will see in this year's new budget the expansion and increase in that budget allocation for the Ministry of Health because we need to ensure that we can attract, we need to ensure that we can secure and keep our healthcare professionals, our nurses especially."
And while the staffing is being taken care of, according to the area rep, the location of the hospital was also taken into consideration.
Andre Perez, Area Rep, Belize Rural South
"This is more than ideal, it is strategic, it's ample space, it's almost 5 acres, it's right on a road that is paved, just south of the island, easily accessible to the airstrip, I'm told that it is going to come with a helipad as well so it is very strategic, it's not only ideal, and there's room for expansion so really the plan for this hospital is about building a hospital now but making plans for the future for any kind of expansion, the land can take care of it."
And in about 36 months, Ambergris Caye will have, not just one, but two fully functioning hospitals.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"This hospital and the private hospital that we have, I know Grand Caribe has a small private hospital, all of those services we can complement what we are doing here at the general hospital that we are building here at this spot in San Pedro."
The contract for construction is with Taiwanese company OECC which works along with the island nation's government.
