This morning, Belize’s national referral hospital, the KHMH ground to an almost complete halt, specialist clinics were cancelled, all elective surgeries were postponed, and the emergency room was operating with skeleton staff. Hundreds of Belizeans and their medical emergencies were left in the breech as doctors went on an impromptu strike to protest what they describe as the arbitrary termination of medical Chief of Staff Khalid Ghazy. The national hospital operating on skeleton staff? That’s a real crisis and it pitched all sides into a series of emergency meetings. Jacqueline Godwin spent her morning at the hospital to find out what was ailing the doctors.

Jacqueline Godwin Reporting
It is not known just how many doctors at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital went on a go slow but the action did cripple services today at the country’s main health facility. The MDs are saying it’s with just cause because for too long they have been working under poor conditions that are affecting their ability to deliver quality care to the general public.

Dr. John Sosa, President - Belize Medical and Dental Union
“Most important of which has been the continuing lack of essential supplies, equipment, medications, that the doctors have to live with everyday and we are tired of the years and years of several administrations and things not improving in our view, things even getting worse.”

The situation reached a critical point on Tuesday when KHMH Chief Medical of Staff Dr. Khalid Ghazy’s long years of service was unexpectedly and suddenly terminated.

Jacqueline Godwin,
Why was Dr. Ghazy fired?

Dr. John Sosa,
“They did not give grounds for his, it was for apparently personal reasons and we doesn’t think you should be fired for those reasons. They should provide of proof wrong doing or proof of not doing your job or things like that were not followed.”

And while Dr. Ghazy’s letter of termination may not have explained why his services were no longer required unconfirmed reports are that the Medical Chief of Staff was fired because he had become too outspoken against the perceived corruption in the acquisition of medical supplies and equipment for the KHMH.

Dr. John Sosa,
“That is done by tendering but many times the people who tender don’t supply what they should and then you have to go outside the system to buy stuff and when you do that you can manipulate the system because you can go buy from a friend for example and pay more and get kickbacks. I am not saying that happens but it can happen and we want things to be very clear and very transparent because this is a people’s hospital, it is for people who really can’t go anywhere and we should given the best possible health care to our population. Poor people don’t want to come and get screwed. They get screwed all over, at least they can come to Karl Heusner and get good service; the basic good service that they deserve.

We can’t prove things that you know exist but you get the feeling sometimes that something may be wrong and we want things to be very transparent and very clear.

Such as the perception of things not going well here in the hospital because of what we perceive to be too many middlemen in the system of buying stuff and basically people hustling off the system and we think that can be fixed.

I think it more amounts to in a sense who runs the money, where the money goes, and what we should be spending it on more but than anything else. I think that is one of the reasons why he was removed as Chief of Staff because he was bring up stuff that you know what this money is being spent for something that could have been gotten cheaper somewhere else and I think people were not very happy.

He was in a sense I think fired for personal reasons or for no reason because none were given in his letter and I think if you want to fire someone, give them your reasons; suspend them first, go through the routine, take them wherever you want to go, Public Service Commission or whatever and then you can do that. You don’t just come and give me a letter and say John Sosa you are going home today. That doesn’t work so. That is not the way it should be.

We went on a go slow and provided only emergency services and emergency surgery if anything needed to be done. We were on a go slow.”

So this morning the President of the Belize Medical and Dental Union Dr. John Sosa along with Dr. Khalid Ghazy, convened a meeting with Minister of Health Pablo Marin, the Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Health Dr. Peter Allen and KHMH Chairman of the Board and CEO Ricardo Fabro and Dr. Gary Longsworth. Following the three hour session Dr. Sosa briefed the press.

Dr. John Sosa,
“We have also gotten commitments to make the system more transparent. We will have an auditor go through along with the Karl Heusner audit. So that everything goes well we will have some changes to the Board of Directors. We will have a union member on the Board of Karl Heusner now, that was a concession and so basically now we move on. In a month we have another meeting and we will see if anything has improved and if things are the same then basically what we do is we start the process over and do what we have to do as doctors.”

The doctors and the union are also asking for some very specific changes on the KHMH Board like the removal of Ricardo Fabro, the Chairman of the KHMH Board.

Dr. John Sosa,
“It is like a basketball team, your team is always losing, you don’t fire your twelve players or fifteen players, the coach goes. In this sense the Karl Heusner is failing and in our sense we think we need a better director, someone with more vision, maybe a businessman that we can do more with what we have.”

Then there is also an issue with KHMH Financial Director Carlos Pererra.

Dr. John Sosa,
“We do have some issues with the Director of Finance, there is an audit ongoing. We will have our own auditor to go through everything and if there is any instances where we see wrongdoing we will bring that up and we will what consequences those things will have. Yes I feel we got our major concessions that we wanted. We wanted a say in how this place is being run, we wanted an audit, of course we wanted Dr. Ghazy to come back, and if even he goes he goes on his own terms but not to be fired this way. We are public officers and we feel we deserve to be treated with respect and we got commitments for murder meetings and for feedback from the Ministry and from the Minister.”

The MDs and the union are also asking that Dr. Martha Habet represent them on the board.

Dr. John Sosa,
“This has been a Belize Medical and Dental Union movement, really the doctors. We have not included any nurses or any auxiliary personnel. We believe the strength of a hospital is basically the doctors. If the doctors don’t work a hospital doesn’t work and unfortunately in Belize many times you come to crisis situations where you have to do this to get things to work because you don’t get listened to, you don’t have an avenue of conversation, there are no lines of communication opened, and then things like this happen and if you have avenues of communication you can avoid things like this and I think at least maybe we can have some communication now with the people higher up to see really how things are in our health system in Belize.”

As for Dr. Khalid Ghazy he says the due process was not followed and based on his response to a question asked we are no sure if he will be back.

Dr. Khalid Ghazy, Fired
“I was never informed about my performance. I have never been appraised for all this period of time and I was surprised to get that letter yesterday.”

Marion Ali, News 5
“What do you think was the reason for your termination?”

Dr. Khalid Ghazy,
“I cannot say. Out of the whole three hour meeting I think it was clear there was a miscommunication between the board and to my level because I was never informed about certain issues the board was asking and I think we cleared it up.”

Marion Ali,
“Any grievances you feel?”

Dr. Khalid Ghazy,
“Well I hope that this process will happen to nobody and we have to follow the due process if we want to demote anyone.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
You have been reinstated but will return?

Dr. Khalid Ghazy,
“That’s a hard question.”

And the while the MDs and union may have felt optimistic about two hours after things return to normal the medical doctors once again were back on a go slow which forced the Prime Minister to make an appearance.

Jules Vasquez,
Why was your presence necessitated at a hospital meeting?

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“Well because the doctors were threatening to either withhold or attenuate services and so I felt that that was sufficiently urgent for me to get involved and to try to assist in the resolution of the crisis.”

Jules Vasquez,
Having heard what you did, do you believe their request or their ultimatums were reasonable?

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“Well by the time I got here there was only ultimatum that I had to deal with. A great deal of progress had already been made and in fact when I got my report, it was clear from then that the single outstanding issue was the question of their demand that Dr. Fabro be immediately suspended as Chairman of the Board. I indicated to the doctors, and it appears that they accepted what I said, that that was simply impossible.”

Dr. John Sosa,
“We believe that if your ship is not driven well, your manager of that ship has to in a sense respond to the demands the people make, or the captain of that ship has to respond to your demands. If that captain is not responding to your demands, things are not going well…”

Marion Ali,
“What demands, can you be specific?”

Dr. John Sosa,
“Mek the ship run better.”

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“I said to them and I am saying to you that the concerns they have about the leadership of Dr. Fabro must be addressed in a way that will give both sides a chance to state their respective positions.”

Dr. John Sosa,
“Progress was made in a sense on the Chairman in that we will look into the situation. We won’t say if he leaves, if he goes, the Chairman of the Board I am talking about because we wanted him to be replaced if anything. We didn’t reach any definite conclusions but we have a process now in place to see if that is possible or not.”

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“The crisis was triggered by the transfer of Dr. Ghazy and the howl of protest that arose from the doctors over what they saw as an arbitrary and unfair transfer. By the time I got here that had already been corrected because the doctors were right. You cannot, in the same way that I am saying the Minister of Health has no power to simply arbitrarily suspend Dr. Fabro, the Board of Directors of the KHMH could not properly institute any arbitrary without due process transfer of Dr. Ghazy.”

Dr. John Sosa,
“Sometimes the hospital doesn’t get what it needs and it has to buy outside at a higher price of course. What we want is that that buying of outside the tendering process be more transparent.”

Jules Vasquez,
Are those outside purchases been from preferred persons, from persons affiliated with the UDP?

Dr. John Sosa,
“I don’t know. I can’t answer that because I really don’t know but sometimes we see that you can probably get something cheaper somewhere else than the person you get it from and we see it sometimes, a lot of times and that is our thing. Why not buy it cheaper somewhere else.”

Jules Vasquez,
Are you satisfied that those in charge of acquisition at the central medical supplies has acted at all times in an above board manner?

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“There is nothing that I know that would lead me to conclude otherwise.”

Dr. John Sosa,
“I would say a lot of things don’t have that we should have. Basic stuffs: syringes, sutures, x-rays. Off and on we have things that are missing; medication, cottons, all kind of things.”

Marion Ali,
“So how do you treat those situations?”

Dr. John Sosa,
“We use what we have and we complain and we complain.”

According to Sosa there will be another meeting in a month to check on the progress of pending issues. There is no word on when suspension hearings for Chairman Dr. Fabro will be held. Things are expected to return to normal at the KHMH tomorrow – but we’ll wait and see if Dr. Ghazy will be returning.