We also asked the CEO about the process of internal and external consultation - or lack thereof - that led to the recent decision to enforce the existing prescription regulations. Sabido explained the rationale:
Julio Sabido, CEO, Ministry of Health & Wellness
"First of all I don't think there was any need to enforce because we have always been telling the pharmacies—when we, the Ministry of Health, go to do inspections—to ensure that you educate your patients. I don't know why the pharmacies and the pharmacists took this out of context. It Is something that has been happening for the past 5 or 6 years from before I became CEO so it is nothing new. And the enforcement was not draconian, it was not forced, it is something we have been telling people from way back when I think Dr Diaz described it pretty well that it could have been maybe a few pharmacists or pharmacies who have been non compliant because 90 or a bit higher percentage have been compliant, maybe the ones that will not say, "you know what I need to become compliant" and so they are the ones that started to ask their patients to be complaint. But I think we are putting this too much in a negative light. We want the patients, we want the Belizean population to not only access, but safe access to medication and we have been misusing medication for a long time."
