_{Andrew Baird, President, KHMHWU}

by Charles Gladden

BELMOPAN, Mon. Feb. 17, 2025

This week, the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital Authority Workers Union (KHMHAWU) met with government and hospital officials to discuss the union’s demand for a pension scheme for its most senior members. The meeting was held following numerous previous attempts by the KHMHAWU to meet with government officials to discuss the establishment of a pension arrangement for the longest-serving staff members of the country’s national referral hospital, the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH).

The KHMHAWU met with the Financial Secretary (FinSec), Joseph Waight; Minister of Health, Hon. Kevin Bernard; CEO of the KHMH, Chandra Cansino; and Chairman for the KHMH, Martin Marshalleck.

Notably, a pension scheme is already in place at the KHMH, but it benefits only employees hired after 2008, thus leaving those employed for over two decades without a retirement plan, much less a pension.

Andrew Baird, president of the KHMHAWU, highlighted in an initial protest on Saturday, February 8, that there were approximately 300 staff members who were seeking to access those pension benefits after working at the hospital for an extended period of time.

After their protest, a week later, members of the KHMHAWU finally met with the Government of Belize on Monday, February 17, in Belmopan. Baird said the meeting was “amicable”.

“We had [a] discussion. We still have not made any agreement as yet, but there [were] some proposals of how things could work that [were] put to the table, of which at this time I would not want to mention, because I have to go back to our membership and staff at Karl Heusner to discuss proposals that [were] tabled, and then I can then speak to the media on that,” he said.

Baird explained that while there was a discussion, final preparations needed to be carried out to make sure things were finalized.

“There’s still some ‘t’s’ that need to be crossed and ‘i’s’ that need to be dotted, and some fine-tuning when it comes to any agreement. Each side has a responsibility to carry through, with the government side will have to produce a template [for] the union [about] what they are, what is required from us; and we have a responsibility to insert those, our 300 members into that template, and to see where they are placed as far as categories and stuff like that,” he said.

“… I would hope that within the next couple [of] months or so we will be able to come under some agreement and get this over with. But I must say, our first and foremost position at the table is to have these 300 staff of Karl Heusner placed back into the pension [like] other government workers, the pension matrix as other government workers. But we are open to other suggestions from the government,” he added.

Baird added that any plans that the union has made will soon be made public, unless the government has something concrete for them to agree on.