Neoliberalism in Belize has become
a rising issue within the country. Many people are blaming the rise in the
economic gap between the rich and the poor in Belize due to the rise in the
adoption of neoliberal economic policies. This proposition, however, does not
have much evidence to support it. It seems that much of this criticism is
coming from outside communist sources, such as Cuba, as a way to try to steer
the country away from democracy (Harrison, 2014). Also, it is important to note
that those who do accuse Belize of being neoliberal claim it takes on its own
form of neoliberalism rather than the classic concept of neoliberalism
("Where are we, Belize ", 20 Aug 2013). If you take a look at some of
the economic policies Belize has implemented in the last 30 years you can see
that Belize generally does not follow one specific method of economics but
rather implements policies from various schools of thought. In this blog post I
would like to analyze some of these policies and form a conclusion on whether
or not Belize could in fact be considered a neoliberal country. I would also
like to mainly focus on the state of health care in Belize relating to
neoliberalism and why it is a present problem in Belize.
In
order to understand the current state of Belize it is good to know a little
background about Belize. Belize is unique in that it was the only British occupied
nation in central America and therefore they speak mainly English compared to
Spanish like most of the Latin American countries. In 1981 Belize gained full independence from
Britain, so very recently. Due to the short time Belize has been its own country, almost all of the past government that Britain
implemented during the colonial time still exists today in Belize. Much of the
government in Belize today is just an extension of the previous British
government and the British policies. The type of government that exists in
Belize today is a Westminster form of government. This is a parliamentary form
of government or legislative form of government, and it is considered a
democracy. The current government in place today is called the government of Belize
or the GOB. This is the government that is responsible for the policies that
are going to be discussed in this blog post.
As
stated before much of the policies that are in place in Belize today come from
the previous British government. During the colonial period the British
government provided mostly free health care to the people of Belize. With that
being said, the care they provided was very bad to say the least (Curran &
Uzwiak, 2010, pg 32). Since Belize gained independence in 1981 it has been
working to improve the state of healthcare through implementation of new
policies. Typical neoliberal policy would call for the privatization of health
services in a free market. Belize, however, has done almost the complete
opposite. Since 1981 they have implemented many policies that increase
government ran health services and increased government health services
infrastructure. Belize created the MOH or the Ministry of Health as the primary
provider and overseer of health services in Belize. The MOH then created the
NHI or National Health Insurance which was Belize's biggest attempt to better
health care in Belize. With the NHI, all citizens of Belize are able to receive
free to little to no cost health care through such things as polyclinics which
will be discussed shortly. The other policy implemented in Belize which gained
international praise from other countries in Latin America was the
implementation of BHI or Belize Health Information. This is a software program
that is able to do many things such as track patient history, provides
diagnosis and solutions for patients, and track prescription supplies. The
software allows people to travel anywhere in the country and the doctor can
just look up their history in the software. The software also has an easy
learning curve which makes it easy to implement. Although Belize has gained
national praise for the implementation of the BHI system the healthcare status
in Belize is still very poor. The polyclinics offered in Belize are very crowded
and the service people receive there is no good. The staff often does not know
what they are doing and are ill-equipped and they often provide the same
medicine for everything. People often tend to just not go to the polyclinics
because of these reasons (Reeser, 2014, pg 3-5). Other options are to go to the
private sector. However, there are very few private practices because people
cannot afford them even though the service there is considered to be better
than the polyclinics.
The next option is the pharmacy.
People also respect the pharmacy better than the polyclinics because they have
a wider variety of drugs. Patients will usually just tell the pharmacy what
they are experiencing and the pharmacist will give them whatever drug they
think is best. This option is also a last resort though because many people
cannot afford this as well. Next we have NGOs or non government organizations.
This is exactly what it sounds like, however, the MOH is very hesitant to
permit any NGOs in Belize because they will not comply with the BHI and
register data into it. The second to last option for health care in Belize is
medical missionaries. The most famous medical missionary in Belize is the Hillside Clinic. This clinic
is a faith based clinic run by U.S. doctors and U.S. students. Generally the
staff will work there between one to two years and then rotate out. The
Hillside clinic is well respected in the area and they even have a mobile
service that drives around and does checkups on people and delivers their
prescription. The final option people
may use to receive treatment is herbal or traditional healers. People in Belize
often call this practice bush medicine and the techniques usually require herbs
for healing and the rituals have been passed down from generation to generation.
Surprising enough this option is used often because of the crowdedness of the
polyclinics and is mainly used by indigenous peoples. So as you can see the
healthcare system in Belize has received international attention for its
implementation of the BHI software to track patient records across the country.
However, nothing in the healthcare policy of Belize suggests that it is
neoliberal. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It is also important to note
that although the government has dumped a lot of money into health care only a
few major cities in Belize have seen a change in quality. Many people do not
have the means to leave the their city in order to travel to a large city and
receive somewhat decent healthcare so they are left to improvise and use one of
the methods stated above.
Now
I would like the look at a few other areas in Belize that may suggest whether
it is shifting towards neoliberalism or not. Policies that do point to Belize
shifting towards neoliberalism are the privatization of environmental and
ecological duties to third party NGOs. This, however, is a very minimal
practice and does not have much effect on the gap between the rich and the
poor. One of the big neoliberal factors, however, is the use of the IMF &
World bank to fund new forms of agriculture. Sugar was the biggest product of
Belize and in the 80s sugar was not popular anymore so the IMF and world bank
funded third parties to come into Belize and excavate new farming grounds. This
is one of the biggest proponents in the idea that Belize has shifted towards
neoliberalism. On the other hand though you have the nationalization of many
companies in Belize, one of them being the sole provider of electricity in
Belize. Other companies such as telephone companies and corporate consulting
companies have been privatized in the last 5 years. Finally, we have the
implementation of increased government intervention in the healthcare sector of
Belize which is perhaps the biggest proponent to display that Belize is in fact
not a neoliberal country.
So
based on the policies discussed it is safe to say that Belize is not shifting
towards neoliberalism. It is true that they have adopted some neoliberal
policies but they also have adopted many non neoliberal policies such as the
nationalization of companies and the healthcare policy. In conclusion, it
Belize does not follow one specific form of economic philosophy but seems to
adopt many ideas from many schools of thought.
Works
Cited
Text
Curran, Siobhan and Uzwiak, Beth.
2010, "Telling it Straight: Community Narratives and Primary Health Care in Cayo, Belzie." Siobhan Curran
and Beth Uzwiak. https://elizabethannparks.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/belizedocsample.pdf
Harrison, Richard S. 2014.
"The Fallacy of Neo-Liberal Economic Philosophy in Belize." Breaking
Belize News. http://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2014/08/28/fallacy-neo-liberal-economic- philosophy-belize/
Reeser, Douglas Carl. January 2014.
"Medical Pluralism in a Neoliberal State: Health and Deservingness in Southern Belize." University of
South Florida Scholar Commons. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6491&context=etd
"Where are we, Belize."
20 Aug, 2013. Amandala Newspaper. http://amandala.com.bz/news/we-belize/
Photos
Belize.com. Nov 2014. "Belize
Pharmacies and Medical Services." Belize.com Ltd. http://www.belize.com/pharmacy
Worldatlas. 2016. "Large
Belize Map - Map of Belize, Belize Map." worldatlas.com. http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/camerica/lgcolor/bzcolor.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment