Hospitals and Doctors
Except for a Mennonite-run clinic in Spanish Lookout and 1 in Blue Creek, most Mennonites (the wealthier ones) depend on non-Mennonite private doctors for serious injuries and childbirth. Both clinics are community owned, have their own ambulances, and are operated by female volunteers and full-time nurses, mostly middle-aged women. Some of the older ladies are certified to assist in pregnancy and childbirth. As yet there is no official male doctor in all 5 branches of Mennonites in Belize. The clinics attend to anyone from anywhere in the country.
Among the Old Colony and Old Order groups, there are many wise, experienced old men and women herbalists who also carry out chiropracting, dentistry and offer herbal cures and massages.
So what happens after a near fatal vehicle accident or a terminal illness is diagnosed? For those who can afford it, the patient is flown to a private hospital in Guatemala City or to Chetumal City on the Mexican side to the north. Belizean private healthcare is very expensive; public hospitals are low-cost but are often short-staffed, ill-equipped for major injuries, and usually a specialist is hard to find. Sadly, it is rare for any person with critical injuries or life-threatening disease to come out alive and whole from surgeries in government hospitals. With all sincerity and in all honesty.
Other Mennonites have no choice. If anything happens, they have to go to government doctors. Usually these are the lower income families of the Holdeman and Conservative Mennonites, as well as some of the Old Order and Old Colony.
Lately chiropractors and massage therapists are in high demand. Anyone with a little money to invest and a knack for massaging can start his own business. Or he/she can first go on a training session and then set up shop. Either way, the demand is enough to provide a nice little income.
So what happens after a near fatal vehicle accident or a terminal illness is diagnosed? For those who can afford it, the patient is flown to a private hospital in Guatemala City or to Chetumal City on the Mexican side to the north. Belizean private healthcare is very expensive; public hospitals are low-cost but are often short-staffed, ill-equipped for major injuries, and usually a specialist is hard to find. Sadly, it is rare for any person with critical injuries or life-threatening disease to come out alive and whole from surgeries in government hospitals. With all sincerity and in all honesty.
Other Mennonites have no choice. If anything happens, they have to go to government doctors. Usually these are the lower income families of the Holdeman and Conservative Mennonites, as well as some of the Old Order and Old Colony.
Lately chiropractors and massage therapists are in high demand. Anyone with a little money to invest and a knack for massaging can start his own business. Or he/she can first go on a training session and then set up shop. Either way, the demand is enough to provide a nice little income.
