7 News Belize

COLA Protests; The Little Ones Not Forgotten
posted (June 6, 2013)
On Tuesday, 7News showed you that power press conference that COLA held in which they announced that they will protest outside of the KHMH.

Well, today, the organization managed to gather about 70 persons who marched in the sweltering heat. They were determined to show their discontent with how the hospital has handed the mass deaths of the premature babies in their Intensive Care Unit.



Daniel Ortiz was out there, and he found out that, as with everything COLA, it was done in dramatic fashion. Here's his report.

Daniel Ortiz reporting
At the head of their procession, the supporters of COLA had a coffin, which could neatly fit one of 12 dead neonates who passed away inside Intensive Care Unit at the KHMH.

There weren't any actually bodies inside it, unless you counted them speaking as one body about the loss of confidence which they continuously hefted along. All through the streets, in a circumference around the hospital grounds, they gave a loud lamentation of their dissatisfaction, closely monitored by wary police officers.

But those officers weren't really threatened by this peaceful group, either physically or by numbers.

Geovanni Brackett - President, COLA
"COLA has staged this protest and demonstration to state three or four things on the record. 1 - we need an independent investigative team to audit this entire situation at the KHMH. This is not the first major incident we had; I think about 9 mothers who had issues up north, parents down south and so we need to put a health check. We need to do a reform of our health system and these grieving mothers and fathers need to get professional counseling and the government should pay for it. 2 - somebody must be held accountable, somebody needs to be held responsible for what happened."

Brackett also asserted that the importance of this issue should not be determined by a numbers game.

Geovanni Brackett
"Of course you would want to have more people but that's not an issue for us. To me the government doesn't need a protest to respond to the thirteen deaths of children who died in 20 days. If they don't respond adequately that just shows the kind of heart the government has. You would have to be a cold hearted person not to even have an impact just by the deaths of the children, much less you need a protest to have a heart? That should not be the case. So we do not need a protest for hearts to be touched, you just have to have the heart to see that 13 kids died and somebody not be held responsible. If nobody wants to hold responsibility then it tells you that not only do we have a breakdown in the health system, a breakdown in morality but a breakdown in this entire country."

These citizens believe that the any meaningful response from the hospital authorities and the Government is too late, but that the people deserve it anyway.

Geovanni Brackett
"I would hope they respond by tonight or by the next hour. If they don't it just shows that it's really what people think of the hospital."

You should remember Marissa Cruz; she is the mother who gave powerful testimony at the COLA press Conference on Tuesday describing the pain and grief she's been forced to go through. Finally, after days of suffering, she has a minor reason to smile.

Marissa Cruz - Lost Her Baby In ICU
"I'm really glad with Ms. Shakron, with the COLA and Mr. Menzies that are behind us here that are supporting us, giving us their full support. I really think it's necessary that they give us support because with oly us, the families, we might not be heard. But with their support it gives us more of a backbone to this whole issue. I think for me to be here today, it does not only make me feel proud of myself but of all the other families that are here because since everybody is here right now it makes me feel like they want to do something about this and bring justice not to only my baby but to everyone else's."

And there were Belizeans this morning who were offering a voice in support.



Keith Yearwood - Concerned Citizen
"I'm here to support the grieving mothers and at the same time I'm a father. At any given time my children could end up in the hospital and I would hope that this tragedy would not happen to one of them."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, do you have any confidence in the KHMH to provide care to anyone of your family?"

Keith Yearwood
"No, Sir."

Daniel Ortiz
"Why is that?"

Keith Yearwood
"Because they have unproved themselves too many times."

Phillip 'Fawda' Henry - Concerned Citizen
"I have life and I was one of them who was born out of a hospital in this country. As a citizen of this country, we must know what is going on in our health system. Health is one of the biggest role and issue in our nation and we all have a time when we choose people to govern our country. We have failure for the past 30 years with our health system and Belizean citizens need to learn to stand up when it pertains to health. There are so many things that happen within our health care system and nobody stands up and ask why it is happening."





Carlee Orosco - Concerned Parent
"My baby could have been one of them and I thank God that He saved my baby that's why I'm here to support them."

But how did we ever arrive here? A former minister of health says that it is due to a breakdown in Leadership that ministry.






Jose Coye - Former Minister of Health
"So I think what we see here is syntomatic of a leadership crisis in the Public sector, that is precisely what I think it is."

If you ask COLA, they don't need any accolades for organizing this protest. All they want is that the grieving families get some form of a release from the emotional toll.

Marissa Cruz
"I didn't have any courage, I was devastated that my child died. I didn't even want to speak to anyone about the issue, I just ignored the issue at thatpoint but now I feel good."

Steven Panton - Lost His Baby In The ICU
"What I think is that everybody is listening to the situation but not everyone understands or are trying to realize the situation because first of all basically most of my family members are taking it badly. My girlfriend is taking it the hardest, it is just to say, everyone knows if you have a girlfriend or a wife that has been pregnant before, everyone knows all the hardship and troubles especially if the person had been having a complicated pregnancy. There's a lot of things that you go through just before the time the kid is born and while your kid is in the womb, you have been having a relationship with that kid as well so just because my kid was seven days old doesn't mean that I didn't know or love my child because I had a relationship with my child before my kid came out of the womb. Everyone that has had a baby before could attest to that and everyone knows what we have to go through to even make the baby come to existence. So a matter like this is very serious and people are not understanding how serious this matter and the same people that are not understanding will be the same people that they will want to run over when something happens to them."

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