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The International Health Professions Network is a non-profit organization committed to providing medical health care to the African Diaspora. Having offered their services and expertise some African countries and the Caribbean, the organization is in Belize this week. The team is here for a five day fact finding mission to identify what are the public health needs of Belizeans and how they can satisfy those needs through their organization. Today, the team met with different government officials and first lady Kim Simplis Barrow.

President of International Health Professions Network told us more about the meetings and when you'll be able to access healthcare:

Susan Stukes, President - I.H.P.N.
"Well the organization likes to identify areas that country needs assistance with in the healthcare arena. So that was the focus of the meeting to find out what the programs are , their priorities and see how we can play a role in helping them."

Nana Afaa Ofosu-Benefo, Vice President - I.H.P.N.
"We are here for all of 8 days, the first 3-4 days in Belize City. The second part starting tomorrow actually, we'll all be in Ambergris Caye conducting a holistic health and wellness conference, very small but addressing al areas of yoga and massage and meditation and some Mayan holistic health practices and things of that sort."

Andrea Polanco
"So the discussions that you had since you been in Belize, what will that lend itself to when returning here?"

Susan Stukes, President - I.H.P.N.
"A combination of things, we will be working to provide clinical services, we've discuss improving the dental care access at the hospital, we've even talk about areas of special needs for children and even the needs of women."

Nana Afaa Ofosu-Benefo, Vice President - I.H.P.N.
"We would like to have a rotating program here in Belize, so it won't be once or twice but having sort of a core set of volunteers who will work with specific programs that we've establish here in Belize and will come throughout the year, maybe every 3 months, maybe every 6 months but this is starting in the future in the next year or so."

The organization which has been serving the African Diaspora since 1990 provides services that range from Emergency Medicine to Nutrition to Community Health Fairs. The team is expected to return to Belize sometime next year.

Channel 7

This has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard of. Health care for the African diaspora when people are starving, dying of malaria and other diseases in Africa as we speak. This sounds like another example of taking money and then using it for the benefit of people other than those it was intended for. Who pays for these meetings? What kind of salary do these 'team' members receive?

Really, this is too much. Go ahead and call me racist or whatever but no matter how you dress this up it is a con.

I visited the website of the organization. It's a registered US non-profit organization. It's not from Africa.
They seek volunteers who are professionals and who will pay their own way to go to a country, then design a way to help.
IMHO it may not be a very well thought out program, but it does not look like a scam.

It is the norm for most our visiting Dental, Medical, even Veterinarians to organize as Diane says. The medical group will have a promoter..for example we are having the World Vets come to Caye Caulker in March...they have to pay their own airfare and approx..$1,000 each. That money is used to budget housing..buying and bringing in medical supplies..and paying for permits which each individual needs, this is a team of 15. Most these groups are legit..the profit they may make gets used up in disaster situations which the world has no lack of. Sadly we have had a medical group that came here for a number of years that was not on the straight and narrow...they were busted somehow and no longer visit Belize....

I don't know anything about this group, but most of these medical teams do pay their own airfare and liviing expenses. We have been working with several groups doing surgery teams for the past 15 yrs. They are generally familiar with the country , culture and the greatest areas of need. I would guess this group is legitimate and would provide some very valuable service to the area. The group we often go with is called Medical Missions International. I don't know if they do teams in Belize, but they are really very organized.

I don't know what this means, if anything, but the head person is the Chief of Dental Services at Sing Sing prison.

That means he/ she was hired by the State of New York to take care of the dental needs of the prisoners. What do you think it means??????

There is nothing obvious about it. There is something obvious about your lack of manners though.

What lack of manners?