N.H.I. Services in Orange Walk Put Out to Tender

Ramon Figueroa

Prior to the Prime Minister’s announcement, N.H.I. services for Orange Walk were put out to tender. And, according to Doctor Figueroa, tenders from at least five clinics in five different zones across the district will be approved. The tendering process is still being undertaken, but it is already in its final stages.

Dr. Ramon Figueroa, General Manager, N.H.I.

“First, we went in to explain to them how it works because I don’t think a lot of people still don’t understand how it works. And then we, we explained the, because we did a geographic distribution of the Orange Walk District by zones, and populations. So that access in the north part of Orange Walk, where would be the, the, the best clinic to put to deal with the access for that part, the south, the west, the east. Um, and even the town itself was divided into, two municipal north and south. So once we did that, that distribution, geographic distribution, geographic and population distribution. And with the assist, actually we didn’t do it on ourselves. We had people from Orange Walk SIB, the city, the town council people, the Ministry of Health, people who know the population movement, assist us in, in creating those geographic and population distribution. Then we advertise, we said, all right, these are the zones who are interested in providing clinical services, what we call primary care provider services in, in the zones that we have identified, pharmaceutical services, lab services, and imaging service, which would be the x-ray. Um, and then once they have sent in the, so we have a timeline. We gave them, we advertised on the media, we did the presentations first in Orange Walk, we advertised in the media, in social media as well, and then we gave a timeline. Then we went in, looked at all those who expressed interest, and then we went in to do an assessment to the facilities, because you could apply as a pharmacy, but if you don’t have the standards and the quality, then you can be included. So we’ve done that initial. The other phase now is for them to submit proposals as to how are they going to provide the services based on the standards and requirements of the national health insurance.”

The deadline for those proposals to be submitted was today.