Shyne Says He Thinks a Replacement WRH Is a Waste of Money

The government’s proposed replacement hospital for the Western Regional Hospital in Belmopan has raised serious concerns, particularly for the K.H.M.H. Workers Union. In a release issued on May twenty-fifth, the union pointed to a myriad other reasons why the ninety million dollars would be better spent in other areas of the public health sector. The union criticized the building of a new hospital when, in its opinion, the monies could be placed in nursing education, specialized medical services, and emergency resources. The Ministry of Health and Wellness issued a statement today, in which it reasoned that the new facility will replace the existing structure at the Western Regional Hospital that has deteriorated. The ministry also explained that the hospital would be able to provide tertiary care to a larger population than the K.H.M.H. currently can provide for and that establishing the new hospital with tertiary and intensive care will bring improved, critical services for the population closer to home. The ministry also stated that because Belize City is prone to natural disasters, the new hospital would provide an alternative for the evacuation of K.H.M.H. should the need arise. But today, the Leader of the Opposition, Moses “Shyne” Barrow told reporters that building a replacement Western Regional Hospital is a waste of money.

Moses “Shyne” Barrow

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Leader of the Opposition

“I would trust what the president of the K.H.M.H. Union says before I trust anything that the Prime Minister says. I would give more credence to a counter narrative if it were to come from some of the medical experts that are not a part of the government. If we could get some of the other stakeholders to chime in, maybe you should get in touch with the other associations and see what those medical experts have to say. But certainly I raised the issue. The UDP raised the issue in the house and the union president and his membership agrees with all that we have said, and I think they know best what we need and everyone understands what we need. We need to fix what we have. K.H.M.H. is a tertiary public health facility. K.H.M.H. does – is charged with training doctors and doing everything that they say the new facility will do in Belmopan so the question is after 28 years of not getting K.H.M.H. right, the hope was that the administration would come in, fix that, fix the other public health facilities and then expand. So I continue, along with the UDP, to associate ourselves with the medical experts that are crying for and saying that this is a waste of 90 million. And we as a country still have not seen how they will deal with all of the shortcomings currently suffered by the tertiary medical facility that we have in place. We have not seen how that money will be spent.”