Minister of Health “No Smoking Guns Here”  

The Government of Belize called a press conference late this afternoon to clarify the purchase of two parcels of land at a value of six point nine million dollars for the construction of a tertiary level hospital in Belmopan. The media briefing comes on the heels of a demonstration in Belmopan on Friday.  It was attended by Belizeans who are dissatisfied with the decision to spend millions of dollars for the undeveloped acreage, in the face of free lands from the University of Belize. Minister of Health and Wellness, Kevin Bernard was the first to speak at today’s press conference. He opened his statement by saying that there is no smoking gun when it comes to the six-point-nine-million-dollar land deal.

 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health and Wellness

“The truth is that as far as that as far as the land acquisition for the site for the Belmopan Hospital is concerned, there is no smoking gun.  There is nothing to hide.  K.H.M.H. is our national referral hospital for secondary and tertiary level care.  But K.H.M.H. functionally and physically has numerous challenges.  As such, we determined that a new modern hospital should be built in a more climate resilient and central location, a hospital able to provide quality secondary and tertiary level health level health care to those from the southernmost and western most villages and towns.  We also decided that Belmopan would be the optimal location. Belmopan is centrally located.  It offers higher ground for climate resiliency.  It is in the vicinity of the University of Belize.  So, we saw it as an opportunity to support the efforts of U.B. in developing tertiary level medical education in Belize by also having it as a teaching hospital for our students where clinical education work could be done. The government agreed to build a hospital on land to be acquired from U. B.  After the technical working group visited the proposed U. B. land and fully aware of the needs required to construct the new hospital, they determined that the U. B. land was not an adequate location. They presented a number of reasons for their determination.  One of the primary reasons was the lack of access to care, including emergency care.  This would be significantly delayed because of where the UB land is situated.  The U.B. land is in a flood prone area.  A creek runs through this land that leads to the river that cannot be blocked, or it could cause flooding in the entire area. Also, the technocrats at Belize Water Services Limited informed us at the Ministry of Health that to provide water and sewage services to the U.B. site, it would cost an additional two point five million dollars to provide the service in the area.”