PM says binding arbitration likely in K.H.M.H. stalemate
What’s the next step in the ongoing crisis between the Belize Medical and Dental Union and the Board of the K.H.M.H.? Arbitration proceedings are expected to be the next step, and opposing parties will be required to sit down once again with a mediator, that is Labor Commissioner Ivan Williams. Facing deadlock after a breakdown in negotiations last Friday, the doctors have now turned to Senator Godwin Hulse to facilitate the process. Hulse told News Five that pertinent paperwork has been sent to the mediator and the Board and that he is hopeful that the crisis will have a resolution. When we caught up with Prime Minister Dean Barrow today at the P.G.I.A., he said that while arbitration is likely, he would be prepared to intervene to move the process.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“Cabinet met yesterday with members of the board, with the Labour Commissioner. What was agreed was that, on the suggestion of the Labour Commissioner, he would make one last effort to continue his mediation effort. If that doesn’t work, I believe the next step in the process since we are dealing with a dispute in what is an essential service, will be for the minister of labour to refer the matter for binding Arbitration. Between the last effort at mediation and binding arbitration, I certainly am prepared to try to intervene to see if I can help to force a resolution. But ultimately if alls that fails, we go—I would think; it is a matter for the Minister of Labour. But I don’t see how we will be able to avoid go to binding arbitration.”
Keith Swift, Channel Seven
“Do you think the doctors are being unreasonable when they walked away from the last mediation process?”
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“I absolutely think so and I’ve said already. I spoke to Channel Five when I came in on Monday, and I said that and I’m not going to withdraw my position. At the start I had sympathy for the doctors, I made that clear. Every single one of their initial demands was met except for their insistence that doctor Fabro be fired without due process. They keep moving the goal posts. Even the additional demands, as I understand it, have been to a large extent have been met by the board. The fact that they, nevertheless, will simply walk away from the process and will engaged in the kind of industrial action that sees them, in my view, violate their duty of care to patients is something of which I certainly cannot approve.”
