Minister of Health, Hon. Joe Coye, confirmed on Wednesday, January 10, that Cabinet has revised its position and has stated that Government should acquire 100% of Universal Health Services (UHS), as opposed to the two-thirds ownership (67%) GOB said it should acquire on Tuesday, December 5.
If Government is acquiring a bigger share of UHS, it follows, logically, that GOB is also taking on more of the UHS debt.
When we tried to get the specifics from the Minister today, he told us that he was unable to provide any. Coye said that he and other members of the Public Finance Committee of Cabinet have been tasked to look at the financial aspect of the deal – which includes reviewing the loan agreement between the UHS and the Belize Bank; and looking at the audited financials of UHS and other relevant financial data.
Curiously, it has been over a month since Cabinet declared that it would settle UHS’s debt and acquire part-ownership in UHS and still, at the time of our interview with the Minister, there was, purportedly, no financial data to back that decision.
According to Coye, neither the loan agreement nor the audited financials have been provided to Government.
He said that the task force set up under his Ministry to review the health aspect of the proposal had asked the UHS rep on the task force for the financials, but the rep said that since the deal had not yet been closed with GOB, it could not yet be provided to them.
So how could GOB buy into the deal without adequate financial information? Coye concedes that Government did a wrong thing to guarantee the UHS loan with the Belize Bank. That is what forced the negotiations with UHS in the first place – since GOB guaranteed the loan, it must now make good on that guarantee and settle UHS’s Belize Bank debt, because UHS did not service its Belize Bank loan on the agreed terms. The total owed to the Belize Bank is in the range of $32 million, and UHS also owes the Development Finance Corporation roughly $12 million.
According to the Minister, Government is now trying to see how it can best benefit from the arrangement. Even before the issue of the UHS loan kicked in, Government had undertaken a health sector reform program, with one of its primary goals being to make more specialized services more readily available to the poor, the Minister said. With Government owning and controlling UHS, said Minister Coye, the poor and the working class would have better access to health care at a price that is affordable. And for those who can’t afford to pay, Government will be obliged to pick up the tab.
He also emphasized that at the time of our interview, nothing had been finalized, and the process of deciding exactly what route Government should take in settling the deal would be mapped out over the coming weeks.
The Ministry of Health task force is expected to report back to him around the 15th of January, and the finance team looking at “the dollars and cents” of the deal is currently in meetings with the bank to determine exactly where Government could go with the deal.
Coye told us that Government wants to avoid liquidation of UHS, and its plan is really to acquire 100% of the shares, but to re-sell shares to UHS workers so that they can be co-owners in the institution.
As regards to recent statements made in the media by the Nurses Association of Belize, opposing the amalgamation of UHS and the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital under the Government takeover, Minister Coye told our newspaper that he understands that the workers of KHMH and the NAB want to be represented in the negotiations, and he wants to take into consideration those concerns that are directly relevant.
He notes that the NAB does have a seat on the Ministerial taskforce, and so does the Medical and Dental Association.
He said that confusion over the UHS-GOB deal has been bred by a lack of public trust, party politics, and cynicism.
On Monday, January 8, we reported that the staff of UHS had voiced their strong opposition to a full takeover or liquidation of UHS by the Government.
Channel 7 News had reported on Friday, January 5, that a release from the Medical and Dental Union had said that the Belize Medical and Dental Association had met on Thursday and made the unanimous decision that the Government should acquire 100% of Universal. However, they had said that they would not object to a partnership with Government.
Cabinet met on Tuesday, January 9, and agreed to the same.
We point out, however, that the Cabinet briefing that came from the Office of the Prime Minister, reporting on this week’s Cabinet meeting omitted this very important decision, and there was no other written statement informing the public of this Cabinet decision.