Belize’s Health System Continuously Preparing for COVID-19

Marvin Manzanero

The three recent positive cases of the coronavirus have all been imported and health authorities say the country is not experiencing a second wave. But during a one-on-one interview today with Director of Health Services, Doctor Marvin Manzanero, we asked whether Belize’s health system can manage a second COVID-19 wave, despite assistance from the Cuban doctors and the beefed up state of regional hospitals countrywide.

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“We should be better prepared as we go along. The situation is that you can never know what can potentially happen; you just have to be prepared. If you have a health system that you know is going to be challenged or can be potentially challenged, then what you have to do is be able to do a quick identification, a quick isolation to be able to contain. So we just have to be prepared for that and it is on two layers: one is public health to prevent further spread and one is the clinical aspect in terms of the regional hospitals. We are for sure more prepared than where we were two, three months ago and we still continue to prepare and look at protocols to see where we can improve. If you ask me right now if we are prepared to have patients in a hospital, I can tell you yes. Even if we never use those beds, we hope that that is the case, but you have to be prepared.”

Doctor Manzanero says that there are up to sixty beds available countrywide for critical COVID-19 patients. Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital has twelve with accompanying ventilators; Corozal has eight, Orange Walk has six and Belmopan can hold up to twenty-five persons and there is preparation for additional ventilators to be installed. The Western Regional Hospital will also serve as a backup to the K.H.M.H. in the case of a natural disaster where Belize City is affected.