New clinic opens on eve of N.H.I. inauguration
For residents of the south side of the Belize District it’s been a long wait…and with only one more day to go until the National Health Insurance pilot project officially gets underway, a major health care facility has declared that it’s ready to go. Jacqueline Woods has the story.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The Belize Medical Associates clinic is just one of the four southside clinics that will provide primary health care under the N.H.I. pilot project. B.M.A., which has traditionally provided special and secondary health care on St. Thomas Street, will now offer three types of services at a new clinic on Regent Street.
Dr. Marcelo Coyi, Chairperson, Belize Medical Assoc.
“One is going to be the curative care that you normally get when you go and see your general practitioner. If you are sick, you come here. The second one is going to be a preventative part of health care and the clinic staff here will go into the community and for members of our P.C.P., we will provide them with an amount of preventative care. We will go out and look for members who fall into diseases that N.H.I. has decided are of utmost risks, like hypertension, diabetes, HIV, prenatal care, screening for cancer for cervix, cancer of the breast, screening for cancer of the prostate. And so members, who are part of our P.C.P. will try to go out and prevent and screen for these diseases.”
Those cases which cannot be treated at the southside clinic, will either be referred to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital or the Belize Medical Associates facility on St. Thomas Street, depending on which facility is prepared at the time to handle the case. But is the KHMH ready to handle the increase of cases that will be sent to them?
Jose Coye, Minister of Health
“We are still in the stage of improving the K.H.M.H. and it’s unfortunate that it was neglected for so long in terms of the resource inputs we have been working on it. Now, to be truthful, I cannot say that we will be truly ready to cope with the K.H.M.H. in terms of what it should be doing. But to the extent of coping with what will be needed in the pilot project, certainly we will be ready for that.”
All southside residents, once they have a social security card and have registered with a primary health care provider, will be able to access the new clinic at no cost to them.
Narda Garcia, General Manager, S.S.B.
“First you will need to have a social security card, or at least for the meantime if you haven’t received your card, a number. With that number, you will then come to your primary care provider and then register. That number is essential because it’s going to track you as an individual, or as a patient when you access any service, when you come to the clinic, go for a consultation, or go to the pharmacy and get a prescription or go to the diagnostic centre and get and x-ray or CAT-scan.”
At least five pharmacies have been contracted to be a part of the pilot programme. At these facilities, patients will be able to get medication free of cost from an approved list of drugs specified by N.H.I. The pilot project will be monitored to see what changes will need to be made before the plan is introduced nation-wide.
Jose Coye
“Certainly we have to look at the cost of the service. We have to look at the priority of the health services, we have to think about the availability of resources, and the willingness and the ability of people to pay. So it is a combination of various factors that we will be tested and brought in apart from the procedure of how do so we access the system.”
Although the project is part of government’s health reform, not all its ministers have fully embraced the initiative. Mark Espat, Minister of Tourism, has publicly questioned certain aspects of the programme, particularly the strong profit incentive for private doctors. Prime Minister Said Musa, who cut the ribbon at today’s open, remains firmly committed to N.H.I.
Prime Minister Said Musa
“First of all, I didn’t understand the minister to be criticising the whole N.H.I. programme. He raised some concerns, and of course when you are moving into something new, there will always be concerns; it’s a challenge. But no, this will in no way deter us from moving forward because we believe that what we are doing is right. We believe that we have to have a better system that the Belizean people are not satisfied with what we have had in the past. So this whole health reform is not only a political mandate, but it’s really a social necessity.”
The four southside clinics are expected to cater to up to forty thousand residents. Its not known exactly when the National Health Insurance scheme will be implemented, but at the end of the pilot project, recommendations will be forwarded to policy makers. Reporting for News 5, Jacqueline Woods.
The N.H.I. pilot project will be officially launched on Thursday afternoon at three in a ceremony at the Matron Robert’s Health Centre in Belize City.
