…But it comes at a price; public to be charged for parking

Carlos Perera

Government provided a subsidy of eighteen point five million dollars to the K.H.M.H. this year. Notwithstanding, the renovations to the hospital will come at a cost to the public. As was mentioned earlier, the K.H.M.H. took out a loan with the Belize Bank Limited to pay for the remodeling and construction works. The Director of Finance, Carlos Perera, says funds are generated from the ICU and that additionally upon completion the public will pay parking fees.

Carlos Perera, Finance Director, K.H.M.H.

“It is going to be broken down into three areas. You have the helicopter pad area going into the Accident and Emergency is one area. Then you have the area which is directly beside the building in the front which is going to be the employee section. And then the wide area that faces Belize Elementary is going to be the open area that will be utilized for charging those outsiders who utilize it as you had mentioned. And then the fourth area would be in front of the K.H.M.H. in that regard. So adding on to what Doctor Longsworth said, we will be setting up a system in place where those parties that you mention: BES, Belize High School, Heritage, Social Security and the Lion’s Club and so forth will be required to pay a fee.  The institution has its financial constraints. However, the two years that we have been looking at, the Intensive Care Unit is a highly revenue generating area. The collection is a difficulty, but it is a tremendous revenue generating area for the institution. We are working on trying to utilize the collections from ICU which we do on a consistent basis that would assist with the payment of that particular area. And as well, if you look at the traffic that we are looking; that utilizes the parking lot, once we put fees in place, the fees themselves in that sense will be able to establish revenues in that area as well. Outside of that institution, generates not only the subvention that we receive from government, but we also generate our own revenues internally, within the institution, which will also be used to service the loan.”

To accommodate more parking spaces, the hospital taxis will be relocated to assigned spots at the entrance to the K.H.M.H.