Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
PHILIPSBURG--St. Maarten has a total of 1,612 persons registered as physically or mentally challenged, based on figures ad interim Health Minister Rita Bourne-Gumbs presented to Parliament in a Central Committee meeting on Wednesday.
Bourne-Gumbs was in Parliament for the continuation of the meeting on the national ordinance on public health that deals specifically with preventing and containing infectious diseases, health protocols and other related topics. The meeting originally started on August 5, but was suspended to give the ministry’s team time to research answers to questions posed by Members of Parliament (MPs).
The figures given by the minister date to 2011, and estimated the number of differently-abled persons living at home at 1,582. Those institutionalised number 30. All of the persons are insured.
She also informed MPs that her ministry is working on a Patient’s Bill of Rights. This should be ready in the coming months.
Independent MP Leona Marlin-Romeo queried why there was no mandatory neonatal screening for all babies born on St. Maarten. She is championing the introduction of the neonatal heel prick screening tests, or the Guthrie tests that look for developmental, endocrine, genetic, and metabolic disorders in new-born babies.
This question along with several others will be answered by the minister when the meeting resumes in the coming days. The session had to be suspended before 12:00pm, because the minister and staff had an “urgent meeting†with Finance Minister Martin Hassink. After that meeting, she indicated to Parliament she wanted to attend the funeral of the long-time security guard of Milton Peters College, Michel Jeffers.
