San Pedro Hospital Delayed but “No Failure Here”

The long-awaited hospital under construction in San Pedro is running behind schedule and over its original $33 million budget, but area representative Andre Perez says the project is not stopping and the final product will be worth the wait.

The facility, funded through a grant from the Republic of China (Taiwan), spans 37,000 square feet and will be the largest hospital in Belize next to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Construction is being carried out by the Overseas Engineering Construction Company (OECC), a Taiwanese firm also responsible for road works in the Sarteneja area.

Perez said the original timeline targeted a December 2025 to January 2026 completion, but a shortage of construction workers has pushed that back to early 2027. “The labour force has been hard to get, and we all know that the construction industry here in San Pedro is booming,” he said.

Beyond labour, rising costs in cement, steel, aggregates, and fuel have pushed the project beyond its initial grant. Daily wages for construction workers on the island have climbed well above one hundred dollars, a cost that was not factored into early projections. Perez also pointed to global factors. “With the wars developing in the Middle East and of course Ukraine,” he said, costs have risen in ways no one anticipated at the outset.

While he could not confirm the exact cost overrun, he dismissed a reported figure of $15 million as far too high. “We cannot quantify how much more it’s going to cost at this stage,” he said, adding that discussions are ongoing between the government and Taiwanese partners.

On suggestions that rising costs represent a failure on anyone’s part, he responded, “There’s no failure here”, adding that the price increases were driven by global circumstances beyond the contractor’s control.

What Perez was firm on is that construction has not stopped and will not be cut short. The Taiwanese ambassador is expected to visit the site in June.