The third day of hearings of the Commission of Inquiry into the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital’s purchasing operations began with testimony from the hospital’s current director of human resources, Laurel Grant.
Grant is a 31-year veteran of the Public Service and has been employed with the hospital since 1997.
The Commissioners concentrated primarily on questions of incidences of record under her tenure as acting Chief Executive Officer, from the resignation of Dr. Alvaro Rosado in March of 2008 to the appointment of Dr. Francis Longsworth to fill the post in August.
Grant confirmed that the hospital dealt internally with cases of misappropriation on the part of two employees, Tiffara Anderson and Carlton Usher. Anderson was accused of defrauding $28,000 in hospital funds from December of 2007 to March of 2008, when she was found out, terminated and made to begin repaying the amount. Usher was fingered in allegations of missing supplies and improper keeping of supplies and was placed on compulsory leave, before being let go.
Grant also spoke of a white Mitsubishi van purchased by the hospital after a previous vehicle developed mechanical problems. Her testimony established that the Board should have – but had not – approved the purchase, though then-Chairman, Dr. Ricardo Fabro, did.
Grant’s testimony noted several instances of bypassing procedure, such as the apparently arbitrary selection of Magaña and Associates to conduct an audit of the hospital upon Carlos Perrera assuming his duties as the new Director of Finance in June of 2008. Perrera had told the Board at a meeting on June 19 that there had been no audit of KHMH since the 2006/07 year, and that Magaña was a “reputable” firm.
However, the Minister of Health was apparently not made aware of the selection, as he should have been.
With regard to the purchase of medical and pharmaceutical supplies, Grant testified that she had only “second-hand knowledge” that some members of staff were doing business with the hospital through their companies, and that it would not have come to her view as director of human resources.
Grant maintained that many of the decisions were made by Carlos Perrera as Director of Finance, and his predecessor, Cecil Knowles, who was first demoted to accountant and then let go after it was found he did not have the proper qualifications for his post.
Questioned as to what the hospital did to fix its situation with regard to security, Grant said that the upper management “encouraged” their lower-level managers to follow the policies and procedures in place, so as to bolster the hospital’s image. They also, she said, changed some infrastructure on the compound to raise the level of security.
In the afternoon, CEO in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Peter Allen, took the stand. Dr. Allen has been in Belize since 1987 and worked at many levels of the health system in government before taking his current post.
From the moment he took the oath and sat down, Dr. Allen made it clear that he was there specifically to clarify points in the Auditor General’s audit report as raised in the testimony of Wayne Simon, Deputy Auditor General, on Thursday and Friday, and to clear up “confusion” in press reports, without naming names.
Dr. Allen maintained that contrary to the impression given by the report, more than 90% of the recommendations he gave to the Tender Committee were in fact agreed to by them, and tendered documents to support his claim.
He said that the over $1.6 million in savings accrued from the open tender process, which replaced the selective tendering practiced from 2006-2008, was largely used to provide emergency supplies in the wake of two tropical systems that struck Belize in 2008, and pointed to over $2 million saved in contracts vs. the previous administration, which meant that they did not need to apply for supplementary funding, despite the “worldwide financial crisis” which had particularly affected national health sectors.
He went on to praise the efforts by the current administration to “go beyond what was required” of them, and noted that the laws of Belize did not call for a tender process for the health sector — only that the Ministry select suitable suppliers of pharmaceutical and medical supplies.
The Belize Health Information System, he claimed, was recently rated “best in the world” by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because of its ready provision of information to those who use it. If there are instances in which the supply proves inferior, then the supplier is informed and told to change his stock, and his contract may not be renewed, he said.
According to Dr. Allen, the Tender Committee sought to “increase representation of suppliers in areas where they had historically been excluded,” a process he termed “affirmative action.”
Addressing some of the specific concerns raised in the report, he noted that he recommended the IDA Foundation, a not-for-profit group that supplies medical and pharmaceutical supplies across the world, for certain contracts, and got the Tender Committee to agree. Regarding the granting of a contract to a company that had not bid, Dr. Allen explained that the bid from the preferred company of the Tender Committee was for a brand that was not considered suitable, but that the company given the contract had offered estimates of what it would cost to buy their product.
Testimony concluded around 3:30 this afternoon and the Commission will take a two-day break until Thursday, December 3, when KHMH employee Lisa Green, Chief Pharmacist Sharon Sanchez-Anderson, and Dr. George Gough are expected to testify.