BELTRAIDE is determined to make medical tourism a reality in Belize as soon as possible. They completed a strategy a year ago, and now they are trying to fill in some of the pieces that will be necessary to make medical tourism a practical reality in Belize. One key piece is a Belize Medical Tourism Association. Today at ITVET in Belize City they started a two day working session with Belizean doctors to come up with a vision for this new association. BELTRAIDE's Nick Ruiz told us more:
Nicolas Ruiz - Director, BELTRAIDE
"The Medical Tourism Association will allow for that lobbying force and that lobbying presence and influence to interact with government to bring all the stakeholders together - doctors, banking institutions, insurance institutions, medical practitioners - all of the players in the sector are coming together to work with us to develop the sector. We view that in dialoguing with the stakeholders through the association, centralizing everybody and bringing everyone together - we can have a closer interaction with them knowing that the incentive packages need to be placed. I believe that the association will certainly be heard once they organize themselves - I will be lobbying for the sector with government and other entities ensuring that it is growing. For our part - we are very committed and we want to be absolutely transparent about it - it's not a waste of time, we don't get people here to dwell on where we have been fallen short but to work on what needs to be done. The main goal here is to make sure that whatever medical facilities that will be catering to medical tourism are in place and that they are certified, that they are up to standard and that they can attract medical tourist to Belize and get good quality services."
The workshop is facilitated by Massimo Manzi who heads PROMED in Costa Rica.
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