The Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is pleased to announce that through the assistance of this Embassy and the Ministry of Health of Belize, the Chi Mei Hospital from Taiwan dispatched a goodwill mission to visit Belize from February 25 to 28, 2019. The main purpose of the delegation, led by Deputy Superintendent Dr. Yu-Feng Tian, is to establish future medical partnership with the Ministry of Health of Belize highlighted by the signing of a Letter of Intent.
This Letter of Intent (LOI) was signed today by Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health of Belize, and Dr. Tian, on behalf of the Superintendent Dr. Chung-Ching Chio, and further witnessed by H.E. Remus Li-Kuo Chen, Ambassador of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to Belize, and Dr. Ramon Figueroa, CEO of the Minister of Health of Belize.
Under the LOI, the Ministry of Health of Belize and the Chi Mei Hospital intend to engage in the advancement of medical care, medical technology knowledge exchange, field visits, training and exchange of health experts in various areas as agreed to by both sides. The Hospital will also provide training in various areas of medical care and treatment to health professionals of the Ministry.
In order to facilitate the LOI and further understand the health profile and needs of Belize, the team, accompanied by the officers of this Embassy and the Ministry, also visited Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, Western Regional Hospital, Northern Regional Hospital, Corozal Community Hospital and Cleopatra White Polyclinic and met with management teams of these hospitals, as well as government officials during their stay in Belize.
Founded in 1968, the Chi Mei Hospital has become one of the largest integrated health care system in southern Taiwan providing health services to more than 3 million patients over the years. Prior to this project, the Hospital has worked and shared its medical experiences with many countries such as Eswatini, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Ghana in areas such as oncology, cardiology, urology and knee joint.
This is one of the many examples that Taiwan has steadily contributed to enhancing regional and global public health development in order to realize the vision of World Health Organization (WHO) that health is a fundamental human right, as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 by 2030, i.e., to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages. Taiwan’s longstanding contributions have been recognized and gained widespread support from Belize, other allies and like-minded countries for Taiwan’s participation as an observer in the World Health Assembly (WHA).
As the year 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic ties between Belize and Taiwan, this Embassy is pleased to see that after the completion with great success of the first Belize-Taiwan bilateral project of public health, “The Capacity Building Project for the Prevention and Control of Chronic Renal Failure in Belize”, another bilateral cooperation project in health area comes in time as part of our series of activities all year round to celebrate the strong and robust friendship between Belize and Taiwan.
