Make no mistake about it. Wednesday morning’s developments at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital represented a full blown crisis in the Ministry of Health, which is to say, in the Government of Belize. Indeed, the fact that Prime Minister Dean Barrow felt it incumbent to go to KHMH to see for himself what was transpiring, is definitely a bad sign.
The last crisis of this magnitude in the Barrow administration took place at Tower Hill in late February when cane farmers expressed their dissatisfaction with a sugar cane core sampler by demonstrations and traffic disruptions which became physical. The upshot of the protests was that a cane farmer was shot dead, apparently by Belize security forces.
While the core sampler issue did take weeks to reach flash point, the violence was sparked, so to speak, by the unilateral blocking of Northern Highway traffic by the cane farmers. In the case of this Wednesday’s “industrial action” by the doctors of the KHMH, this was in direct and quick response, as we understand it, to the termination of the KHMH medical chief of staff, Dr. Khalid Ghazy. In other words, we are saying that it was the administration of the hospital which raised the stakes, out of the blue as it were. (The headline story in the UDP newspaper, THE EL GUARDIAN, published on Thursday morning, June 18, described the situation as follows: “ … the doctors under the Medical and Dental Union threatened to go on strike after the Director of Medical Services Khalid Ghazy was transferred to head the Accident and Emergency Unit at the KHMH.”)
Again, while it was suggested that Opposition PUP elements were active in the Tower Hill agitation by Orange Walk and Corozal cane farmers, the spokesman for the disaffected doctors, Dr. John Sosa, Jr., the president of the Belize Medical and Dental Union, comes from an impeccable UDP background. Of additional interest is the fact that last weekend’s headline in THE REPORTER, which is considered UDP-sympathetic, had to do with alleged irregularities in the tender process for medicines, supplies and equipment in the Ministry of Health.
Speaking to the press this Wednesday, Dr. Sosa specifically mentioned as areas of dissatisfaction, the circumstances surrounding essential supplies, equipment and medication. He spoke in plain and dynamic words. “This is a people’s hospital.” “Karl Heusner is failing.”
Dr. Sosa’s union is calling for the removal of Dr. Ricardo Fabro as chairman of the KHMH board and expresses concerns about Carlos Perrera, the Director of Finance.
There is a larger issue here. This newspaper had said that Mr. Barrow, in campaign and even after he was installed as Prime Minister, had set the bar impossibly high where his commitment to clean, corruption-free government was concerned. In the last few weeks, THE REPORTER has raised serious concerns about goings on in the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing, and, as stated, the Ministry of Health. The Opposition PUP newspaper, BELIZE TIMES, has, additionally, gone after the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Works, and even Mr. Barrow’s Ministry of Finance. (The $35 million Moneygram scandal is, ultimately, a Central Bank issue.)
This newspaper is concerned about Mr. Barrow’s choosing to go personally to the KHMH during the crisis. He should have used a surrogate. Yes, the crisis was real and it was serious, but Belizeans have unhappy memories of the last few years of the UDP’s 1993-98 administration, when it seemed as if Mr. Barrow was trying to run everything, and indeed was referred to by the Opposition PUP as “Minister of Everything.”
It appears that there is a dearth of real talent in the UDP Cabinet. This is a fundamental problem with Belize’s system of government. Not because you are an elected area representative, it means you deserve a Cabinet portfolio and that you can handle one. In the republican system, such as that in the United States, the Cabinet is mostly chosen by the President from the superstars in the non-electoral sector.
In closing, we wish to congratulate Dr. John Sosa, Jr., for his honesty and bravery. It is not as if they can do him anything, really, because a doctor can always go into private practice. But he is already receiving criticism in UDP circles (WAVE Radio), and, as we have said, his background is completely UDP. If he were a PUP in a PUP government, he would never have been allowed to speak so openly. So, in congratulating Dr. Sosa, it may be that we also have to congratulate the UDP. In this case, the executive is abiding, in this matter and so far, by the democratic principles to which the nation of Belize theoretically subscribes.
All power to the people.