Exercise Equipment was from 2019 MOH Procurement

On Wednesday, Doctor Melissa Diaz-Musa, Director of Public Health & Wellness, alerted mayors across all municipalities about the concerning findings. Back in 2019, the Government of Belize, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and the Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan), launched the “First Ever Wellness Parks” initiative, installing eight sets of workout equipment in various municipalities. However, due to the high levels of lead found in the paint, it’s crucial to remove and safely dispose of this equipment as soon as possible. The detection was made using a special analytical tool that measures the fluorescence properties of a sample. It works by shining light on the sample and then measuring the intensity and spectrum of the light that gets emitted.

 

Dr. Joaquin Urbina, Assistant Professor, U.B.

“This device can be placed directly on the surface of the paint, and you can get a reading within under a minute.  And so, the values that were obtained were further validated using a more complex device available at Mercer and it can really confirm the numbers that we got from the XRF test that we did on site.  So the validation part was absolutely important because that is what is used as a standard to then officially report the values of the lead in the paint. I must, you know, recognize the work that Mercer University has done along with the University of Belize.  The University of Belize is premiere university in the country and as the premiere university, our mission, or part of our mission, is to ensure that any type of scholarly work is going to serve as a way to inform decision making at the national level.  So this particular study does exemplify the importance that academia plays in guiding decision making for the government.”

 

The Embassy of Taiwan wants to make it clear that while they funded the exercise equipment back in 2018, they weren’t involved in actually buying it. They take this issue very seriously and are committed to working closely with Belize’s government agencies to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again in future projects.