So, this afternoon Commissioner of Police Williams went to the Hospital to meet with the staff and address their concerns. The meeting started at 2:30, and lasted for just under two hours.
Jomarie Lanza was there and she spoke to the Commissioner when it was finished:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Well basically we came and we met with the hospital administrator. We also had a representative from the Ministry of Health and Wellness in Belmopan, Dr Morey and the head nurses and other doctors. We wanted to hear from them what actually transpired the night of June 1st and we have also secured a number of video footages that we will be viewing to identify those persons who came to the josotal and created the ruction that led to the hospital staff being in fear. And so
having heard from them what took place on the night in question we discussed to see what we can do to make sure that there is no occurrence in the future and one or the things that we are doing is that my legal officer Mr Jones will be working along with Dr Sabido to develop a protocol in terms of how the police is going to respond to incidents at the hospital and even what the police is going to do when there is a high profile patient being treated at the hospital. Particularly if that patient is brought by the police. So the way it was done before where the police just come and drop the person and leave, there has to be something done to create ppl or presence in the event tut person may want to come and create problems so all of that we will be looking at to see what we can do."
"I also suggested to the hospital what they can do is that with their security that they currently are we can look at training them and making them special constables. So since the police is not able to work at the hospital on a 24 hours basis, the security that they have if they are special constables they will have the power as a police so they will be able to do law enforcement jobs and arrest people who may come on the grounds to create problems. That was a suggestion put out to them which they say they are going to take back to their managers to see if that can be prevented. I think it's going to be an excellent thing for them to do but I am happy to see that the doctors and the staff were able to express themselves to us and work with us to make sure we have a clear understanding of what the problem is and see how we can together work towards resolving the problem moving forward."
"Well what I have said to them is that whatever protocol we develop here can be replicated eventually across the country. Likely rightly said gang activities has permeated the country to some extent and we have to make sure that when we do have patients who are high profile when I say high profile I mean in the sense of their presence at an institution may create some threat. Then we will have to make sure we have a system in place to be able to deal with that so it can be replicated across the country again Belize city do have something not in writing but it is implied police officers do know that when they respond to an incident at the Karl Heusner we normally leave police officers there right so we will see how we can adapt that. In time police can stay at the hospital while the patient is here at least for a certain amount of hours until the patient is stabilized, transferred or whatever. So all of those things are being taken into consideration as we develop that policy moving forward. We have at least for a certain amount of hours until the patient is stabilized or transferred or whatever."
