Health Minister on BAPDA’s Concerns

Earlier this month, the Belize Assembly for Persons Living with Diverse Abilities (BAPDA) held a press conference to say they are underfunded and need the public’s assistance to continue fighting for the differently-abled. President Kenrick Theus explained that the funding provided by the government is not enough to sustain its activities and support its members. We asked Health and Wellness Minister Kevin Bernard about it. 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health and Wellness: “It’s always going to be a challenge for us to be able to find the necessary support and resources but from a Ministry of Health perspective we try to as much we have a small support that we give to the cancer group, we give to various organizations that focus on health and I believe Special Olympics is well mainly through the Ministry of Sports and Education but we are partnering with them as well to see how we can also offer additional support to Special Olympics. But it’s not just that as I said it’s in other areas of health that we have a high case of cancer in our country we’re looking at all of these things that are affecting our people and I make the appeal to that organization that they can reach out to us as well and see how we can as well support but as I said it’s always a challenge. One organization alone cannot do it, it requires collaborative efforts, it requires the Belizean people coming together and one thing I can say about Belize and Belizeans is that when we work together we always achieve great things and so it is in that spirit that we’re saying we are here as the Ministry of Health and Wellness to see how we can partner with these organizations in support of making their job easier but at the same time making access to healthcare and affordable healthcare available to everyone.”