Free Testing for Students Commuting at Border Entry Points

According to this week’s Cabinet brief, the government will provide free testing for students needing to cross the borders to study. These tests are being provided by private companies such as the Belize Diagnostic Center. So, how will that work? Will the government be absorbing the cost? 

John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“We in the ministry of health did not have the necessary hands and our doctors and nurses and technicians are stretched thin and they are tired. And so it was felt best that that be privatised and closely regulated by the Ministry of Health. Now with the opening of the borders, we have decided that our students can go across the border and if a test has to be done, that is going to be free of cost. Obviously we will work out an arrangement with the people that offer the service and it will be at cost of the test itself. We are not going to allow and I don’t think they will even ask to want to make a profit on that. So that is one thing. Secondly the children across that want to come to school. We are saying let’s open it up and let these kids come to school without requiring a test.”

On the Guatemalan side, three hundred quetzals or about eighty-five Belize dollars is being charged for tests to enter that country.  Guatemalan authorities are saying that if Belize removes the cost for the tests for migrant workers and students entering the country, then they will do the same for day trippers heading to Guatemala.