BERT Needs Your Donations

Last week, News Five reported how the sharp increases in fuel prices are negatively impacting the services offered by the Belize Emergency Response Team. While BERT relies heavily on international donors, Executive Director, Andre Carillo, says it is becoming difficult to tap into the same pool of people that have already donated, so whatever help the wider community can provide would go a long way.

Andre Carillo

Andre Carillo, Executive Director, B.E.R.T.

“We’ve asked our patients to contribute to BERT and we want patients to understand that when we ask them to contribute to BERT, when the ambulance arrives for you, we are already providing you with an ambulance with oxygen on board and medical supplies and a trained E.M.T. (Emergency Medical Technician). Whenever you contribute to BERT, you’re paying that service forward because somebody has already donated that service to you, so we ask the public to support us because this ambulance service is here to serve all of us. Whenever you pay and you contribute to BERT, you’re basically ensuring that the patient after you is going to have that same level of care that you received. Locally we will be approaching the business community, so when we write to the business community as well, the different programs that we’re undertaking that will help us to meet our sustainability, and so we also ask the business community as well to support us much as possible.”

Carillo says that BERT is currently in discussion with Digi to launch a toll-free number which patients will be able to call BERT directly instead of through the Police Department’s 911 number.