Emerson Guild from BART, the Belize Advocacy for Renal Therapy says US$4 is the cost for treatment in Cameroon. But that’s in Africa and Guild says we are in Belize.

Emerson Guild, BART
“Those costs were not realistic to Belize. We are still trying to formulate the costs here so that $8 cost or US$4 was a cost out of Africa where he is providing services right now.”

Dr. Michael Pitts,
“What I understand is that in Cameroon where they started one of their first projects, they had some related co-payments of about US$4 per session. The thing is that the cost of the service is a different thing. I think our objective is to understand what it is costing people now and to see how we could develop a system to give significant relief to patients. But we have to work out all the costs parameters in terms of delivering the service.

And just if I could draw a parallel for you, for example in the public health system right now if somebody should come to a clinic, they will get medication and under the NHI they might be a small co-payment. So it is that type of thing we are looking for in terms of an approach with dialysis. But indeed there are costs that we have to look at and work out. And there are various things and these are some of the things that have us going through deliberate steps to understand exactly what these things are.”

So when will the project come online? Well Dr. Pitts says it should come online next year. There will be a long delay because a draft memorandum of understanding has been stuck at the Solicitor General’s office for more than a month. That is in addition to the floor plans for the unit at the KHMH which has been sent to worth and is awaiting approval. If all that goes as planned, construction will begin and the machines will arrive – after that. Clearly it’s a not a magic wand situation and Dr. Pitts explained.

Dr. Michael Pitts,
“My understanding is that they expect at this stage that because it is a Ministry of Health initiative and by extension government initiative that they expect government will bear the cost of infrastructure development and certainly for the recurrent costs forward. And so we have to look through those. And where we are is that we have a proposal with an MOU at the Sol Gen office. They have indicated to us that MOUs require due diligence and careful consideration before you go ahead and sign anything.

We have a draft that was sent to the Sol Gen office and that was sent in September. I know as recent as yesterday I had an interaction with the Sol Gen office and they indicated to us that they need some reasonable time.

Clearly once we have an initial MOU from the Sol Gen, we will have to share that with our partners to hear what is their view. I think I am understanding from La Loma Luz and Karl Heusner that we shouldn’t have a long turnaround time. But certainly Mr. Trebbint has said to me that once he gets that, he needs to send it to his legal persons to have their views and input. So it would be a bit of up and down to get that tight and close, satisfactorily to all the parties concerned.

I believe Dr. Trebbin is satisfied by how we are progressing with the MOU and he says he is satisfied with the infrastructure drawings. These seem to be the things that will trigger the other events.”

As Dr. Pitts mentioned, government will be responsible for constructing the unit at the KHMH. WORTH’s only other dialysis unit is in Cameroon. Dr. Michael Pitts says government has done its due diligence and the company appears to be legitimate.