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Well, turns out they are waiting on 2 new ambulances from the US - 2 that were ordered about 9 months ago. Why is it taking so long to reach? Well, we caught up with Dr. Peter Allen at another event today and he told us that one of the "holdbacks" is the stringent requirements for transporting these ambulances from the US to Belize. But he assured us that arrangements have been made to provide this indispensable service.

Courtney Weatherburne
"I understand there's been several cases where patients or people who have called at the Western Regional Hospital for an ambulance had to either, one, wait a long time for one or they simply said 'we don't have the ambulance or we don't have an ambulance ready. How are you guys coping with it? I understand that it's also an ongoing issue. How could you have a hospital without an ambulance?"

Dr. Peter Allen, CEO, Ministry of Health
"They do have an ambulance but I do understand that it's actually in the garage at the moment. Within the road safety project you see much of the infrastructure going on along the Western Corridor. The loan allows us to procure two ambulances. Those agreements were actually signed about 8 or 9 months ago and it's a source of great disappointment to us that those ambulances are not here yet. Unfortunately the reasons are beyond our control but so while the Western Regional Hospital ambulances in the garage they are indeed using or making use of others that are available including the Belize Emergency Response Team and including the ambulance in San Ignacio. I'm happy to be able to tell you that the Ministry of Finance has approved for us to procure another 6 ambulances which have now been ordered. The delivery time for those ambulances is about 100 days, but they certainly will help with this situation."

The hospital is using BERT in Belmopan and other ambulance services to hold over until the ambulances come in. As Dr. Allen stated, another 6 have been approved from the Ministry of Finance.