Ministry of Health finds partners to get dialysis machines
The cost of dialysis treatment is exorbitant in Belize. Currently one dialysis treatment costs five hundred dollars and patients regularly require three treatments, weekly, a staggering sum for patients to come up with on a weekly basis. Well, a U.S. based organization has donated dialysis machines and organized an effort in a part of Africa that decreased the cost of treatment to about eight dollars. The World Organization of Renal Therapies (WORTH) headed by Dr. Wayne Trebbin communicated with the Ministry of Health that his group would like to carry out a similar investment in Belize. WORTH would provide the Ministry of Health with eight haemodialysis machines. Dialysis units would be installed at both the KHMH in Belize City and La Loma Luz in Cayo. Well that was the plan. But according to the Belize Association for Renal Therapy (BART), the Ministry of Health missed several deadlines even though there was a draft memorandum of understanding. WORTH appeared to have dropped ties with the Ministry of Health and intended to work only with Loma Luz. But at a joint press conference in the presence of BART and Loma Luz representatives,
the Director of Health Services, Doctor Michael Pitts, indicated that the plans to work with WORTH are still underway. However, Pitts indicated that the cost of dialysis treatment should not be expected to be as low as it is in the African nation of Cameroon where WORTH has established a presence.
Dr. Michael Pitts, Director of Health Services
“It was in late June of this year when technical members of the Ministry of Health learnt of the WORTH company and a proposal that they can deliver—or they have a mission to deliver haemodialysis to patients around the world. Back then we learned that they have an operation with Cameroon where they were doing certain things that benefit a lot of percentage of patients and we believed that we should explore that possibility with them. We have a clear approach where we are saying with WORTH that we want to deliver dialysis service through Karl Heusner Hospital with Loma Luz as an associated non-profit provider. We discussed that beyond and said we can also consider Loma Luz as a western corridor to support patients.”
Emerson Gill, Representative, BART
“Doctor Trebbin had shared some cost to us that came out of Africa, but those cost were not realistic to Belize. We are still trying to formulate the cost here. So that eight dollars cost or four U.S. dollar cost was a cost out of Africa where he is providing services right now.”
Dr. Michael Pitts
“There is the support services that you need to have with dialysis so there are lab costs, there’s pharmaceutical costs. There are things for example that we need to bare the cost of movement of equipment and so on into Belize, transporting everything from WORTH source right into Belize. There are the costs related to getting the new personnel on board. Certainly we need to look at nurses and bio-med technicians that we need to hire. There is the recurrent cost of things that will come on place, the light and water. In a dialysis system, water is a big utility and so that will be a significant cost.”
Jose Sanchez
“At the end of this process with Loma Luz, the Ministry, K.H.M.H. and the organization, would every patient be able to access treatment?”
Dr. Michael Pitts
“In no part of the world, I know that every patient or every person access dialysis. There are protocols that guide the doctors in doing that, but certainly in terms of giving care to patients, you want it to be a technical decision. You don’t want to have any situation where who gets dialysis is based on who you know and who you don’t know but based on the merits and demerits of the clinic case. So that is how we propose to move forward.”
