House meeting comes down on K.H.M.H. bloated contracts
There is plenty to report in tonight’s newscast. But first we go to Belmopan where the House of Representatives met this morning. On the agenda were controversial constitutional amendments and other issues of national importance, including a new promise on fuel prices. We start with the situation at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where it has now come to light that inflated prices are being paid for medical supplies that could have been acquired at far cheaper prices. The Leader of the Opposition, John Briceño, threw the first salvo, the Minister of Heath, Pablo Marin, says he does not know what is happening and Prime Minister Barrow says heads will roll.
John Briceño, Leader of Opposition
“Between April of 2008 and March of 2009, there is a company owned by the family of Doctor Fabro where the tendering committee approves seventy-seven thousand dollars worth of business. After the tendering committee awarded that contract and it came to Belmopan at the minister’s office, it was changed to seven hundred thousand dollars of business without approval of tendering committee. And to make it worse, Mr. Speaker, they were very late in delivery of their medicines and the supplies. A lot of it was inferior quality and it ended up costing the Ministry of Health and the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital a lot more money because they had to go and buy this medicine from other people. There’s another company, Best Medical Supplier, that won a bid on two lab items. And guess what, the minister’s office reversed this decision and gave it to Belmopan Medical Lab Services company owned by one Ernesto Franco, a personal friend of the Minister of Health. And to make it worse, Mr. Speaker, one of the items—the cost of one is three hundred dollars more expensive. On December fifth De La Fuente Pharmacy sold the Karl Heusner Memorial fifty hydralizine injections at sixty-seven dollars each. Two weeks later, on the nineteenth of December, they sold Karl Heusner-the same company, the De la Fuente Pharmacy—another fifty of these injections for sixty-nine dollars each. But here’s the thing Mr. Speaker, just days before they did buy some of the very same injection from Bradley’s Imports. And Bradley’s Imports sold the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital fifty of these very same injections. You know for how much? Eleven dollars and fifty-four cents, Mr. Speaker, and we have the invoices right here.”
Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
“What maybe can be happening that the people that should have got these things are mad at us because they didn’t get the contract. But we are saving money and I can show you the books. You can see the books.”
Jules Vasquez, Channel Seven
“But, also we have seen invoices that show that the De la Fuentes are selling things for two thousand percent more than Bradley’s and Leslie’s Imports are selling it for.”
Pablo Marin
“Maybe that is at K.H.M.H. Like I said before, exactly I don’t know what his happening at K.H.M.H.”
Jose Sanchez
“But that is the national hospital.”
Pablo Marin
“Yes but that has their own board; they do everything. We only oversee and we give them finance.”
Jules Vasquez
“Are you going to oversee the investigation?”
Pablo Marin
“Sure and, as I said, if anybody is doing anything wrong, they will have to pay for the consequences no matter who they are.”
Jose Sanchez
“Are you going to do your own investigation as the Minister?”
Pablo Marin
“Definitely, I am going to do that and we are going to do this immediately.”
Jose Sanchez
“Your C.E.O., Francis Longsworth said fifty-three percent of the contracts are not tendered. Why is that?”
Pablo Marin
“Maybe, I don’t know about that. That can be what the KHMH is asking for, what they give us we tender everything.”
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“It is clear that the doctors have a problem with the way that purchasing of that fifty-three percent is done. If the invoices and the comparisons made by the Leader of the Opposition are in fact accurate, that is not going to be tolerated. We have already agreed with the doctors, by way of trying to resolve the stand-off, that an investigation must be done; an investigation into all complaints. And these complaints form the basis for further demand that certain individuals in the administration of K.H.M.H. must go. Those queries, those concerns must be addressed in a fair and independent and impartial investigation. And indeed, if what was put forward today is accurate, heads have to roll. That cannot be countenanced; cannot be tolerated. I’m sure that there are explanations for all sorts of things but those sorts of gaps, if they are accurate, cannot satisfactorily be explained, in my view and people will have to suffer the consequences for operating or allowing to operate a system that could throw up that kind of discrepancy. It means that there are huge losses to the tax payers, it means that there is not proper value for money and that cannot be tolerated. The person who is a public officer who agrees knowingly to buy at that inflated price, for sure, has to answer for his or her actions.”
