The Belize Healthcare Partners (BHP) is currently moving to assume full control of the Universal Health Services (UHS), according to director Collet Montejo.
In an interview with Amandala this afternoon, Montejo said that the deal was sealed last Friday, January 18, and tomorrow, Friday, January 25, the former UHS directors will hand over to the new investors. A new management should assume office on Monday.
That manager will be Mrs. Rosinell Craig, who, Montejo told us, will take the office of UHS’s general manager. Craig is a former manager of Adventist schools.
Montejo said that over a year ago he left one of the country’s premier hospitals, Loma Luz, where he served as manager. (Loma Luz is an Adventist hospital.)
“There was a dream that was created to improve on the services available there, but we did not get that support from them so we decided to create – to purchase a facility or build one if we had to,” he added.
He said that BHP was incorporated two months ago, and there are four Belizean directors, two of whom wish to remain anonymous. He told us that their foreign partners would also like to remain anonymous.
Apart from Craig, the other disclosed shareholder is Dr. Vinny, who holds majority shares, according to Montejo.
He said that they had been looking seriously at the UHS investment since last July.
“Since we found out about UHS and the ‘demise’ they were in, we decided to explore the possibility of actually taking over that facility, and now that it’s no longer a possibility, it’s a fact, it’s done, we’ve been in contact with our colleagues, some of whom we have contacted before and they actually joined us in this whole move forward,” he commented.
He said that a motivating factor for wanting to make an investment in tertiary healthcare in Belize is that a lot of Belizean patients were being sent out of Belize to places like the United States, Guatemala and Mexico.
“Many that go, come back and tell you about the hardship they go through,” he added.
How will the new team make the UHS sustainable when the past managers were unable to survive without racking up a mountain of government-guaranteed debt?
One way is to reverse the trend from exporting patients to importing them – something called medical tourism. Another area that would help, he said, is establishing oncology services so that all the wealth of money that leaves Belize for treatment abroad can remain at home.
This week UHS is in transition, and the new owners (BHP) take full control of the institution next week, Montejo told us.
He said that the new UHS would serve the rich and the poor.
Montejo said that he does not want to see another Belizean die because he or she can’t afford healthcare.
“It was always our intention to try and keep the institution grassroots; as a matter of fact we even contemplated the last few days naming the institution the Andy Palacio Memorial Hospital. It’s a thought that crossed our minds, something we are still battling with,” he told our newspaper.
How successful will they be? Montejo conceded that there is really “no guarantee,” but he told us that they have “crunched” the numbers and what they have come up with looks good to them.
“I believe that we have worked through our finances. We started our due diligence in July/August of last year. And that is the first thing we addressed because at the end of the day the almighty dollar speaks,” he commented.
Attorney Lois Young, member of the Association for Concerned Belizeans, this morning probed Prime Minister Said Musa on the KREM WUB show about the UHS matter, asking whether the Government had not guaranteed a $300,000 revenue stream to UHS, amounting to $3.6 million a year. Both Musa and Montejo confirmed that this is the case.
PM Musa said that the payment is a sort of subsidy and was being made to ensure that needy persons would get care at the hospital.
We note that the loan motion that the Prime Minister presented to the House in May 2005 called for 29 million to be borrowed from the Belize Bank to pay off UHS debt over 25 years at 10% interest. The monthly payments would have been in the region of $270,000 (very close the $300,000 GOB has agreed to pay UHS monthly), based on simple amortization calculations.
“The real truth is that the government owes a debt to the Belize Bank. And mark my words: whichever government is in will have to settle the debt,” Musa had said on Wednesday, May 9, 2007.
Now, both parties—GOB and BHP—say that the UHS debt of $45 million, which Musa signed without National Assembly approval, is no longer a public liability.
Montejo told us that the debt with the Belize Bank has been paid, because the BHP has gotten the UHS assets, and they start off with a zero balance.
He also told us that they will not turn away any emergencies, regardless of whether the person can pay, but other cases will be treated differently, but on the basis of people’s ability to pay.
BHP says it is assuming 100% control of UHS.