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Social Security
http://www.belizelaw.org/lawadmin/index2.html
Volume 2
Chapter 44S
Pages 128- 134

I sometimes I come here to the ambergris caye message board and air it, kick it around, get remarks comments, suggestions, advice, so I can take all that, put it together into a decent idea, so here we go� Belize has Tour Guides that work in the Belize Tourist industry. Tourism is a large part of the country's economy and they are the working guys on ground level. Since the country has such a large barrier reef, that runs the length of the country, diving is a huge part of that tourism dollar and the Tour Guides that are Divemasters and SCUBA instructors are the workers taking care for this industry.
In Belize if you're a farmer, banker, clerk, baker, candle stick maker or almost every and any description of occupation and you get an occupational related injury The Belize Social Security takes care of you with an attractive benefits package. Chapter 44 of the Belize Social Security Act has a schedule 3 describing who and what is covered, under;
LIST OF PRESCRIBED DISEASES AND INJURIES AND THE
OCCUPATIONS FOR WHICH THEY ARE PRESCRIBED
Its 7 pages long and reads like this �..
Tuberculosis, Dermatitis of the hand, Brucellosis, Infectious hepatitis, Typhoid, Infection by leptospira
Icterhohaemorrhagiae, Infection by leptospira canicola, (c) as a slaughterhouse worker;
(d) as a laboratory worker; or
(e) in any other work relating to the care, treatment,
examination or handling of such animals,
carcasses or parts thereof, or products including
untreated milk. Pulmonary disease due to the inhalation
of the dust of mouldy hay or other
mouldy vegetable produce and characterised
by symptoms and signs attributable
to a reaction in the peripheral
part of the bronchopulmonary system,
and giving rise to a defect in gas exchange
(Farmer's Lung).
Pulmonary disease due to inhalation of
cement dust (cementosis).
And on and on!
Our nations Stewarts in the Tourist Industry, the Tour guides/Dive masters and instructors that suffer Scuba related Illness (their occupational hazards) needing hyperbaric treatment are told ,'Sorry, that's not in the 3rd schedule of the laws' and therefore no treatment is covered.
Hyperbaric treatments are expensive, so expensive that the economic stability of the Belize Tour Guide needing this is devastated and without it some of the consequences are paralysis and death.
Please understand, the no treatment coverage of Tour Guides with Decompression Illness isn't discrimination or a conspiracy it's just an over site and omission in the SOCIAL SECURITY ACT revision.
It's the law and the social security board is just following the law they are directed to follow.
Amending the social security Act
How do I do that?....and isn't it wonderful that Belize is a country where an average Joe can!

If it needs to change, the definition or wording for the description would probably help in assisting who ever writes the amendment.
so here is a little info and some accurate wording.

The amendment should read:
Social Security
THIRD SCHEDULE
[Regulation 58]
LIST OF PRESCRIBED DISEASES AND INJURIES AND THE
OCCUPATIONS FOR WHICH THEY ARE PRESCRIBED;
Column (1)
under heading
Description of Disease or Injury
idem 20. Decompression illness, illness that results from a reduction in the ambient pressure surrounding a body.
DCI encompasses two diseases, decompression sickness (DCS) and arterial gas embolism (AGE).
Column (2)
DCS resulting from bubbles growing in tissue and causing local damage. AGE results from bubbles entering the lung circulation, traveling through the arteries and causing tissue damage at a distance by blocking blood flow at the small vessel level.
SCUBA Diving by reason or employment -
SCUBA Diving industry and ancillary work places.
Chairman Lois Young Barrow if your reading this I think this would do the trick ,it might could be tweaked by you a little but its very close to what the law needs to read in order to cover the Belize Tour Guides working in the SCUBA Diving industry.

Elbert: seems to be an excellent change...but do you really expect to get anywhere on this message board?
You need to communicate directly with the appropriate principals.

Oh yes , your underestimating what we have here Jesse already I've got the Editor of The San Pedro Daily on line but just so you know Its going to all their emails. Trouble with that is those email address are not usually looked at by the correct people to effect the change.
After it (the idea) gets developed here it will be in the news papers and may be even in the San Pedro Daily.
Just a few min. ago I sent it out to 1,034 friends who will be sharing it exponentially.
They will be reached.

And tomorrow if you Google ' Social Security Act + Belize ' , you can probably read about two old farts on the ambergriscaye.com message board discussing the probability of changing the 2nd volume 44th chapter page 134 of the Laws of Belize.

"1,034 friends'...facebook?

Yep
SCUBA Diving girls has 16,632 readers/friends

Dear Mr. Greer,
Thank you for your email below. I would suggest that you prepare a formal letter with the benefits you are requesting from Social Security. It would also help if you would get other guides to sign a petition. Once you have all this together, you can send it to the Ministry of Tourism for them to lobby the Social Security Board (via the Ministry of Finance) for the changes.

Regards,
Laura Esquivel Frampton...

Good goin'! Note that government officials will pay much more attention to a formal hard-copy letter than they will to email...they get the same deluge of trash email that we all do.

I've got the petition started , just got off the phone with the Billy Leslie president of the tour guides assoc. and he says lets get it circulated in the membership.
Billy Leslie is a fight for what he believes in kinda guy and if hes on your side in an issue that involves the welfare of the tour guides your gona win.