Some four months after the last day of testimony at the Belize Institute of Management in Belize City in December of 2009, the 106-page report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital was handed in to Prime Minister Dean Barrow on Friday.
The Commissioners – Chairman Justice Adolph Lucas of the Supreme Court, retired nurse Julia Castillo and former Auditor General Orvin Nicholas – were sworn in last July, after members of the Belize Medical and Dental Union occasioned a slowdown in services at the nation’s leading hospital in June over allegations of impropriety in the acquisition of pharmaceutical and medical supplies by hospital management.
The appointment by the Prime Minister listed the Commission’s terms of reference as follows: 1) investigate procedures and processes for procuring pharmaceutical, medical and other supplies and equipment at KHMH from January 2007 to June 2009; 2) determine whether due observation and transparent purchase were carried out in procuring such supplies and equipment; 3) determine whether approved or established policy underlay such practices and whether they were carried out without waste or abuse; 4) review and comment on the finished independent audit report of KHMH; 5) determine the presence of wrongdoing if any in the procurement of supplies and equipment, as well as find evidence of fraud, corruption, mismanagement, etc. and identify the persons responsible; 6) identify weaknesses in the process and recommend corrective measures to ensure transparency and accountability at all levels; 7) recommend any action against persons responsible for breaking established rules and regulations or committing any other wrong act; and 8) hear matters related to the above.
After a delay of the completion of the audit into the hospital’s records for the period being investigated (January 2007 to June 2009), the Commission’s public hearings began on November 26, 2009, with testimony from Wayne Simon, Deputy Auditor General, on the contents of the audit report.
Simon outlined numerous instances of alleged impropriety at the hospital, many of which became topics of interest to the general public listening live to the hearings on radio or catching highlights on the evening news, among them business transactions by employees of the hospital with companies they owned, apparent theft of hospital monies, failure to follow procedure and protocol in hospital affairs, and others.
In the subsequent days, the Commissioners heard from “large and small” employees as the KHMH’s internal processes were opened up for explanation. A total of 21 witnesses, ranging from employees at the hospital’s lower levels to senior management, including the Director of Finance, Carlos Perrera, CEO Dr. Francis Longsworth and deposed chair of the Board of Directors Dr. Ricardo Fabro, and even into the Ministry of Health, specifically, CEO Dr. Peter Allen.
The Prime Minister commended the Commissioners for carefully going through the documentation associated with the testimony and for an overall good job, and promised again that the report would be made public “as soon as possible.”