More exposure of the KHMH Files

Another Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH) scandal concerning the questionable purchase of pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies, despite a commission of inquiry being held in November 2009 to investigate such practices, continues to unravel.  Last week former KHMH employee Delroy Herrera exposed the management of the hospital for the allegedly devious procurement practices of equipment and medical supplies.  In the wake of Herrera’s public revelation, which played out in the talk show circuit, the former clerk was arrested pending charges of handling stolen goods.  Since Herrera was in possession of thousands of digital files, property which does not fall within the ambit of the criminal code, he was subsequently released.  His computer and other electronic equipment were also seized by the Police Department where a scan for similar privileged information on the hospital’s financial management was conducted.  His lawyer, Arthur Saldivar, has since taken up the mantle, further unmasking the affairs of the institution in what he claims to be gross mismanagement of millions of dollars.  The KHMH administration, on the other hand, maintains the transparency of its fiduciary practices and challenges the government to launch an investigation into the matter.  This afternoon Saldivar revealed to the media that an annual publication by the Ministry of Health, which outlines the ordering, and purchasing of drugs and equipment, in his opinion, is fraught with irregularities.

Arthur Saldivar

Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for Delroy Herrera

“I think it’s a great insult to the intelligence of the entire Belizean public for the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital and its management to come forward and say that we are going to come forward and open our books for the government to investigate because at the end of the day they are one and the same.  The management of Karl Heusner and the government are one and the same.  You can’t investigate yourself. Here’s the nuts and bolts of the issue.  The tendering process for pharmaceuticals in Belize are basically documented in a book okay.  That book is called the Ministry of Health Pharmaceuticals & Medical Supplies which outlines what medicines are bought for the country for all the hospitals countrywide, at what costs okay and who bids and what are the basic guidelines for the bids.  Outside of that, traditionally, this book, this one says 2011-2012, there’s one produced every year also outlines who wins the bid.  So it was very, very suspicious that the Ministry of Health in the year 2011-2012 would produce the document and not on any of its pages disclose the winner of the bids, for any of the pharmaceutical supplies that it has purchased. But what is also very curious is that on perusal of this document and the documents that came before, like documents to this, for the years before, you will see that there are winners but you will also see that this one represents a hundred percent increase in the quantity of pharmaceuticals purchased for the country of Belize.  Now when last I checked I understand that our population is growing but we’re still weighting the true picture of the census that was conducted sometime ago but I don’t believe that we have gone from three hundred thousand to six hundred thousand people overnight.  That is what this is suggesting that we have now exceeded five hundred thousand people in Belize to be able now to justify the kind of increases represented in this book.  Now this is saying exactly what those files that Mr. Herrera has been able to secure as evidence that millions upon millions of dollars have been unlawfully, unlawfully siphoned off by virtue of a process that not only involves Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, it goes to the very top of the Ministry of Health.”