Impasse – Union insists, but KHMH board resists!
Posted: 26/06/2009 - 10:00 AM
Author: Aaron Humes
Day nine of the standoff between the Belize Medical and Dental Union (BMDU) and the Board of Directors of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH) ends tonight, with no clear resolution in sight.
By way of recap: the Union, led by Dr. John Sosa, has delayed a meeting with appointed mediator, Ivan Williams, the Commissioner of Labour, that had been scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, until Monday, June 29; it continues to call for the termination of Dr. Ricardo Fabro, chair of the Board, and suspension of CEO Dr. Francis Longsworth and Financial Director Carlos Perrera.
Meanwhile, the Board of Directors of the KHMH continues to deny wrongdoing and challenge the BMDU to present concrete evidence to back up their allegations.
In the middle is the Government of Belize, represented by Minister of Health Hon. Pablo Marin, his CEO Dr. Peter Allen, and the three auditors called upon by Prime Minister Dean Barrow to investigate the allegations, and who are due to release a preliminary report by Friday and a follow-up thereafter.
When Amandala left the hospital grounds on Monday evening, Hon. Marin, Dr. Allen, Dr. Sosa, Dr. Longsworth and Dr. Fabro, among others, were headed into their second meeting of the day, requested by the BMDU the previous Friday.
The executive of the Union had met with Minister Marin and CEO Allen earlier in the afternoon without the KHMH board present, presenting their grievances and getting the Ministry’s assurance of a full investigation.
Later in the afternoon, the three sides were supposed to convene for a second meeting, but the Union objected to the presence of Drs. Fabro and Longsworth, who were the subject of one of the fourteen points of a draft Memorandum of Understanding since released to the press. They asked the Minister to ask both men to leave, but after consultation, both men returned and the union halted talks at that point, feeling unable to present the memorandum to the group if it included both men, according to Dr. Beatriz Thompson of the BMDU.
On Tuesday morning, the Minister of Labour, Hon. Gabriel Martinez, intervened and inserted Ivan Williams as mediator (see story elsewhere in this issue). He first called Dr. Sosa and requested a meeting, and then called again asking about a fax number to send a fax with the time of the meeting.
At a press conference called on Wednesday morning at the Juana Noguera House, headquarters of the Nurses’ Association of Belize, Dr. Sosa, who responded that he needed to meet with the other members of the Union, narrated what happened next:
“At that time he did not give me a time for the meeting; I did not know…they sent a fax – I think some of you have seen it already – at 2:30; the time is here on the fax, for a meeting at 3:00. When I came out of seeing a patient at a quarter to four, they gave me the fax, and I said, ‘This seems a bit unfair.’
“So when he called me again at five… I told him, call off your meeting, we will not go, because I cannot get to see all the doctors…so we had a meeting last night (Tuesday) and we can go to their meeting, but we have several members of the Executive out at this time, and so I told him we cannot do this… until Monday.”
Dr. Sosa added that he felt the timing seemed “a bit rushed.”
On the question of whether a trade dispute was taking place, Dr. Sosa said he didn’t believe so, because the doctors were still working at the hospital. Later on, he said that services were at near capacity.
The union presented the draft of the memorandum, which demands that no punitive action be taken against Dr. Khalid Ghazy, the director of medical services, who faced an attempted transfer last week which set off the dispute, nor against other BMDU participants in the dispute; an independent forensic audit into the financial administration of the hospital, with auditors chosen by the union, within a month; and the appointment of a BMDU member to the Board by today, June 25, among other things.
The remainder of the press conference was spent going over allegations concerning the invoices and purchase orders presented by the Union to the Minister et. al., as well as other concerns about needed improvements to the Accident and Emergency area of the hospital, and the rusted instruments doctors are forced to use.
The union insists it is not an investigative body and called on Government to accede to its requests.
Today, Thursday, the Board struck back. At a mid-afternoon press conference of its own in the KHMH Conference Room, the members of the head table expressed their dismay with how the situation had evolved and sought to “correct” what they perceived to be misperceptions in the media presentation of KHMH’s position.
Dr. Francis Longsworth went over a number of present and future improvements the hospital’s patients should expect to see, all paid for with money he said was saved through the reorganized procurement process so criticized by the union.
Laura Longsworth pointed out that the doctors have been accused by members of the general public of charging private consultation fees for services performed at the hospital, using hospital equipment. She accused the union of being a stumbling block to change and covering up its own issues in conjunction with the Nurses’ Association, whom the BMDU claims supports them. Once again, she stated that the charges made by the BMDU “have not been substantiated.”
Dr. Peter Allen, representing the Ministry, claimed not to be happy to have to be defending the new reforms, but nonetheless put up a spirited defense. According to Dr. Allen, there exists “confusion” between the Ministry of Health’s procurement standards and those of the KHMH, but since the introduction of the open tender system, “millions” have been saved and reinvested in the system, he reported.
On the question of the $700,000 contract awarded to MC Pharmaceuticals, a company controlled by Dr. Fabro and managed by his wife, Marie Cardona-Fabro, which was said to have been changed by the Ministry without consultation with the tendering committee, Dr. Allen confirmed that the contract was revised up from $77,000 to $700,000 with input from the tendering committee after it was found that the company was selling at lower prices, but because of quality issues, the contract was not renewed (it expired in March).
Dr. Fabro later told the press that the company’s business was aboveboard.
On the question of the government auditors, Dr. Allen said that Donna Crawford-Smith was asked to analyze what was presented to date because of her familiarity with the tendering and supply chain process. Crawford-Smith is said to be the Ministry of Finance’s representative on the Tendering Committee.
Most importantly, the Board continues to refuse to resign or be suspended, pending the results of the audit investigation.
So what’s next? Labour Commissioner Williams has been silent and it appears that he, like everyone else, is waiting for the three-person report to be released tomorrow, Friday.
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