On the Phone: Gerardo Aldana, Former Teacher

“So I went on one year sick leave and after that I was getting full pay and then I went to half pay and no pay. At that time I had no option to resign from my post to apply for my gratuity. It took me a while, but I got it. And since then I applied to go medically unfit and they said I had resigned so I will not qualify. I also applied for my pension. So, after that time I tried to speak to officials from Government to consider my appeal and they said well you resign so there is nothing we can do about it. Since then to now I have been going through Social Security and it seemed like it went missing and missing and I don’t see how it could go missing. So, I had appealed and wrote to the governor general and no response at that time. When I went to social security they said that they needed a report from a neurosurgeon so they directed me to go to this neurosurgeon in Belize City and then at first we thought it was three but it was five and he said we can do the surgery but it is expensive and risky. So I said I would pause on the surgery because I don’t want to end up in a wheelchair. At least for now I am walking and I am not going to do that. So I went to Social Security and they said go and do your surgery and if you are in a wheelchair then you come back and apply again. I said I cant deal with that. Since then I have been waiting, waiting, I sent emails and no response.”

SSB Probes Teacher’s Long‑Delayed Invalidity Claim

After nearly a decade of waiting, former teacher Gerardo Aldana says his pleas for invalidity benefits have gone unanswered, despite a career-ending back injury and more than twenty years of contributions. His case has raised serious questions about how the system treats long‑serving workers who fall ill. Tonight, the Social Security Board is responding. SSB’s Public Relations Manager, Vanessa Vellos, tells News Five the board has launched an investigation into Aldana’s claim, and she says they’re treating it as a top priority. Here’s what Vellos had to say.

                      Vanessa Vellos

Vanessa Vellos, Public Relations Manager, Social Security Board

“This matter is currently under review. So I am not able to give you a specific comment on what the claims in the media has been his experience with the SSB. It has been my experience that when these cases pop up there is always another side to what is being said. This is something we are actively investigating internally at this time and I think it would be premature for me to say anything beyond that because we need to know what are the complete facts of the case if you will.”

Paul Lopez

“However can you appreciate the frustration that people feel when there in a situation like this after making their contributions for almost three decades?”

Vanessa Vellos

“Definitely I can appreciate any level of frustration that nay insured worker or retired person may feel if there is any claim that they have made and maybe they have been told that they are denied that particular claim.”

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

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The post Teacher Denied Invalidity Benefits After Decades of Service first appeared on Greater Belize Media.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Today really feels different. It feels significant, it feels like a homecoming. Twenty-five years ago, a bold idea was born in the south side of Belize City. It was an idea rooted in a simple but powerful belief that where you live or how much you earn should never determine whether you live or die. It was the belief that healthcare is not a commodity for the few, but a fundamental right for all Belizeans. That idea was the National Health Insurance Program. For a quarter of a century, that pilot project on the south side of Belize City has been more than just a program. It has been a laboratory of hope, we learned lessons there, some hard, some triumphant. We learned that when you invest in primary care, you save lives. We learned that when you empower local clinics and pay for performance, quality improves.”

Kevin Bernard

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health & Wellness

“Today’s contract signing ceremony represents more than an administrative process. It reflects our continued commitment to ensuring that Belizeans have accessible, affordable and quality healthcare close to home. Primary healthcare, ladies and gentlemen, remains the backbone of any effective health system. It’s where prevention begins, where chronic diseases are managed and where families develop trust and relationships with healthcare providers. Through NHI, thousands of Belizeans have benefited from improved access to essential services without the burden of overwhelming out-of-pocket costs.”

Lionel Olivera

Lionel Olivera, Communications Officer, Total Health Solutions

“Total Health Solutions will be providing a unique situation for the communities of Pickstock, Freetown and Fort George. What that will do is that almost fifteen thousand persons will be served with a community-faced healthcare system where we have the primary care providing services for pharmaceuticals, as well as laboratory services. Now what that does is it provides a one-stop shop for all of these services in one building.”

Tonight, the question now is whether this renewed push for NHI will finally turn decades of big promises into dependable healthcare that Belizeans can actually count on close to home.

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

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The post Will Belizeans Finally Get the Healthcare They’ve Been Promised? first appeared on Greater Belize Media.

Yveth Quintanilla

Yveth Quintanilla, Mental health Coordinator, Ministry of Health and Wellness

“When these incidents happened, we take it very seriously. But we also want to highlight that these incidents are a minority. Often times we would see that when persons who suffer from a mental disorder, there’s a three to five percent of these incidents happening. Whereas when we compare them as them being victims, they’re ten times more likely to be victims rather than them perpetrating different incidences out there. So that three to five percent compared to the persons who are mentally well and committing the robberies, the murders, and all the other incidents that are happening there. It’s a very small minority, but we, as a ministry, we do take it seriously. For known cases, we actively follow them and we ensure that they receive the mental health services that they require. For the unknown cases now, I really want to ask the public to work with us: the families to be able to provide that support to their loved ones. The family are the first persons to notice any difference. For example, if the person is withdrawing, the person is not sleeping, they’re not eating like how they used to eat before or eating more than, then these are some of the first symptoms to indicate that, okay, something might be going on beyond what is normal. So don’t wait until things happen to come to our clinics. We want to catch it at the very beginning. And the family, the community is very important in identifying these things..”

And tonight, the ministry is urging families to spot those early warning signs and reach out for help before a loved one slips into crisis.”

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

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The post Ministry Warns: Missed Mental‑Health Signs Fuel Crises first appeared on Greater Belize Media.

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The post Two Students Diagnosed With Tuberculosis first appeared on Greater Belize Media.

Melissa Diaz-Musa

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Director of Health and Wellness

“We have confirmed two malaria cases in Crique Sarco Village. These persons had traveled over to Guatemala within the timeframe and started with symptoms in the mid-January, and they were recently diagnosed. So these cases are defined as imported cases, which means that they had become infected outside of Belize. Even though we define them as important cases. It’s also important to note that, we need to ensure that there’s no transmission, no local transmission in country. So we still give the education aspects. We try to ensure that persons utilize what is needed, the repellent, keeping the home screen, staying indoors, et cetera. And we also do enhance surveillance. So we go to the villages and the surrounding villages. We test everyone. We look for persons with fever. We look for persons with joint pains and other signs and symptoms of malaria. And we do our testing. In Belize with the Ministry of Health and Wellness, we’re able to readily test for dengue, malaria, chick v, Zika. And so these are vector born illnesses that may present with very similar symptoms. So we are encouraging the public that if you do have any of these symptoms, just come to any of our facilities and you can be easily tested.”

Reporter

“Did they go to our health facilitate?”

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa

“Yes. They, they were true. Well, we do have our community health workers on the ground. We have about three hundred community health workers. And these persons are our eyes and ears in our community. So especially in rural areas, they go house to house, they do health education and they try to pick up anyone who’s sick or they do preventative messages as well. They do screening. So that is how these persons were picked up through the community health workers who did the test and found that the test was positive and then they were then taken to the health facility.”

Belize Saw Rise in Influenza Amid Cold Front

 Belize recorded an increase in influenza cases in January during an unusually cold period linked to a cold front. Health officials say the spike mirrored outbreaks reported in the United States and Canada. Although case numbers have since declined, Director of Health and Wellness Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa is urging the public to get vaccinated.

Melissa Diaz-Musa

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Director of Health and Wellness

“Over in January we saw an increase in H3N3, which is an influenza virus, and that’s the subtype of the virus. That was the one that was spreading in the United States and Canada in different areas. And we are able to test at the Central Medical Lab, again, we test for influenza A, influenza B, COVID, and many of the other viral infections. The recent report shows that it has become now stagnant. And hopefully we’ll see a following base. We also, I want to take this opportunity to say that we also have the flu vaccine available at every health facility, private and public, and the pneumococcal vaccine that helps to prevent pneumonias and other diseases in children and adults. So I encourage you all to go out and get this as soon as possible.”

Reporter

“Talk about vaccines, you know, during the COVID there was a lot of talk about vaccines. Since then, have you seen any change in, in terms of people seeking certain vaccines?”

Melissa Diaz-Musa

“I think initially after COVID not that I think, I know that we had a significant fall in our routine vaccination programs for most of our vaccines. Now we have recovered very nicely and I’d like to say that for example, the HPV vaccine, which is the human papillo virus vaccine, and it prevents cervical cancer, for example, ninety plus percent of cervical cancer is linked to HPV. Initially, post COVID, we had fallen to about thirty-eight and our reports show that for 2025 we’re at seventy-six percent, which is wonderful for us and which really helps us to eventually get to the goal of the elimination of cervical cancer in our country.”

Ministry Confirms Port Loyola Polyclinic Set for Demolition

 On Tuesday, we reported community concerns in Southside Belize City over the apparent stripping of the Port Loyola Polyclinic. Residents noticed doors, windows, and fixtures had been removed from the building, which has been closed for months due to mold. Today, Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Director of Health and Wellness, clarified that the dismantling is part of an approved demolition following the clinic’s condemnation.

Melissa Diaz-Musa

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Director of Health and Wellness

“The Port Loyola Clinic has been closed now for over a year and the Ministry of Health and Wellness who did an assessment along with CBA and MIDH to look at whether or not the building could be retrofitted or if the building would’ve been condemned. The report came back that the building was condemned, and for that reason we moved our staff. Because we felt that of course it would not be safe for our staff and for patients to come into our facilities if it is not if it’s a building that’s condemned. So, as I’ve explained yesterday, the services have been moved to the Welcome Resource Center, excellent services. We do have the mentally ill, they can access counseling they can access psych, the psychiatric care. We have our psychiatric nurse practitioners and compounded with that, they can also get the food and the clothing, the shower, and a place to rest at the Welcome Resource Center. So in the near future, that building will be demolished and a new building will be built on that same land. That’s the plan for now.”

Britney Gordon

“Is there a timeline on that?”

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa

“Well, we are progressing quite swiftly. We hope that the demolition could occur within the next month after which we’ve already reviewed plans of the new facility and we’re just tweaking and making some changes with the plans. So we’re looking at, at least within the next year for billing to commence.”

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The post Two Belizeans Test Positive for Malaria Following Guatemala Trip first appeared on Greater Belize Media.

The programme, in partnership with the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired (BCVI), the Ministry of Health and Wellness, and OneSight, aims to make eye screenings and affordable corrective services more accessible.

Schools are a key focus, Dr Diaz-Musa explained. “We do have many students who might not have been picked up or have never visited an ophthalmologist or optometrist to see if they need glasses for reading or seeing the board.”

Beyond schools, the programme seeks to address vision problems more broadly, helping to correct refractive errors and ensure people can access the care they need easily.

The launch brought together health facility staff, primary care providers, Ministry of Education representatives, and other partners, all working to reduce preventable vision problems across the country.

“This launch is just the beginning,” Dr Diaz-Musa said, noting that the collaboration is meant to catch vision problems early “to reduce refractive errors”.

The post Over 2 Billion People Struggle to See Clearly first appeared on Greater Belize Media.

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Kim Bautista

Kim Bautista, Chief Vector Control Officer, Ministry of Health & Wellness

“What prompted this is whereby we’re seeing a pattern in terms of persons traveling to certain endemic areas and returning to country positive. And what that does is it basically, you have communities that are highly at risk for malaria, reestablishment and so the ministry side fit to make the public aware of these two cases. And also measures that could be put in place to prevent such occurrence. And also to highlight some of the signs and symptoms since it has been quite some time since we had reported local cases. Now you are correct in terms of, whenever you do have these imported cases at times they also you may also have a case that may be directly linked to that, that imported case. Those tend to be classified as, as, as introduced and it does not signify. Local reestablishment  and so it does not compromise the status that has been designated to the country as a malaria free country. For that designation to be revoked by the World Health Organization, you would have to have local transmission for a period of three consecutive years. And so that of course we’re not nowhere near that as yet. But what we are doing is just to ensure that we keep the public abreast. They know that the risks are still there and, and know that the testing is available free of cost. The treatment is available free of cost.”

Health officials say the best defense now is awareness, urging anyone traveling to high‑risk areas to protect themselves and get tested at the first sign of symptoms.

Watch the full newscast here:

The post Two Imported Cases of Malaria Confirmed in Belize first appeared on Greater Belize Media.

Belize continues to hold its malaria‑free status, granted by the World Health Organization in 2023. This means mosquitoes in Belize are not spreading malaria from person to person.

Imported cases do not change that status, but they show the risk of malaria coming back if travellers bring it in from countries where the disease is still active.

Malaria can cause fever, chills, headache, body aches, sweating, tiredness, and nausea, with symptoms appearing 7 to 30 days after infection. Free testing and treatment are available at public health clinics, through community health workers, and via malaria volunteers.

The ministry also noted that Belize has the capacity to test for Chikungunya and Zika. No local transmission of Chikungunya has been detected since 2016, and Zika has not been reported since 2017.

The post Two Imported Malaria Cases Confirmed in Toledo first appeared on Greater Belize Media.