Today's Plan Belize launch gave us the opportunity to question the Opposition Leader about the strong criticism he had for the Ministry of Health's response to the current COVID-19 outbreak.
Briceno said, quote, "We are faced with a disastrous second wave. Every day of testing has yielded numbers which are staggering for our small nation. With the first week of the spike in cases, our health monitoring system has for all intents and purposes collapsed." End quote.
During the question and answer section of their event, we challenged Briceno on those comments, and here's how that exchange went:
Daniel Ortiz, reporter
"If there are Belizeans who take note of the fact that you have, for a number of weeks now, resigned from the national oversight committee and interpret that to be no grounds for you to criticize the Ministry of Health so harshly, what would be your response?"
Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"That I have every right as a citizen to be able to criticize anything from any department of government including the Ministry of Health and that as the leader of the opposition I think I have not only a legal but a moral responsibility to point out the shortcomings of the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health has had 6 months to be able to put all the things that we have been asking to put in place and it still has not done so. One of the most important things is that we have private doctors at private clinics to this day do not know how they can participate or how they can help, They understand that the Karl Heusner Hospital or the regional hospitals can be overrun within a day because they are limited facilities or ventilators and so forth and they have been offering to want to participate. When I was a member of the national oversight committee, I brought it up several times and they said that yes, they are going to do it and it hasn't gotten done. We have a crisis in San Pedro as we speak. I have spoken with the people, the health workers, the frontline workers in San Pedro and they are crying out for help. Do you realize that the tests that were done on Friday are not being brought to Belize until today simply because they have no money to pay for fuel, not even to hire a boat, but to pay for fuel to be able to bring that. Do you realize the care center that was set up by the citizens of San Pedro, that they don't have a budget to pay for electricity and water, that the water has been cut in at least two times, I mean ,they also have no quarantine facilities in San Pedro right now, the numbers are raging in San Pedro."
The UDP sent out a press release shortly before the start of this evening's news.
In it the ruling party says, quote, "The United Democratic Party notes with extreme disappointment the 'Statement on Health', released by the Leader of the Opposition, John Briceno… As Belize prepared for the inevitable invasion of Covid-19, Prime Minister Dean Barrow invited Briceno to co-chair the National Oversight Committee charged with steering Belize through this national crisis...
In late June, when Covid-19 infections were rising in every country around us, Briceno abandoned his co-chair position on this non-partisan committee. He made it clear that he believes it was more important for him to focus on his political ambitions during this time. His actions confirmed to the nation that once again he was choosing party over country and politics over people. Therefore, while it is disappointing, it comes as no surprise that Briceno would issue such a hypocrisy laced statement at a time when the National Oversight Committee, which he abandoned, is working to get this recent outbreak under control…" End quote.
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