Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
"The savings from travelling abroad by plane or by air ambulance and being close to your family while receiving care on St. Maarten is nothing new and is the very basis why I have, the Ministry and the Inspectorate has worked to improve quality care on St. Maarten and working with the SMMC and the Louis Constant Fleming hospital to provide care to all of us."The Minister further explained that there are many newly built and under construction empty hospitals in the regions such as St. Lucia and Antigua. "St. Maarten does not need a shell that has no parking and is in a VROMI flood zone number 3."There are those who start a project and leave the mess behind for others to fix it the right way. Therefore you are right I don't want to build a hospital that lays empty like the new government building. I don't want to build a hospital like the bridge whose hydraulics and lights do not work after several months. I do not want to build a hospital like Front Street and Back Street that falls apart due to bad infrastructure. I do not want to build a hospital caught up in who owns what like the harbor. I do not want a picture and no financial plans on how every dollar will be spent.
Too often we are quick to build things and projects because of elections and then we have no way of maintaining it. I do not want the expansion of SMMC to be part of any of these never ending stories. St. Maarten needs the expansion of SMMC to be done the right way. The same way the Point Blanche water plant was constructed. No corruption, no evasion only transparency and accountability."De Weever said several ideas have been discussed in his Minisry with Mr. Ralph Barret the Regional advisor and lead consultant. Health Financing and improving the access to HIV services for mobile and migrant populations in the Caribbean. However, the question remains as to how St. Maarten will pay for these things. Instead government chose to focus on prevention which will decrease healthcare cost, furthermore when focus is placed on quality care, the costs for doctors will also decrease and SZV and SMMC can be held accountable for quality care.
He said when the Visitor Health Fee is introduced which is an insignificant cost that can be charged on airline tickets or cruise ships. A simple $1.00 per head will generate 1.7-1.8 million cruise ship- projections for 2 million passengers and ½ million stay-over visitors we can collect 2.2 -2.3 or even 2.5 million dollars to be used specifically for our national health infrastructure that serves both the resident and visitor populations."By introducing a Visitor Health Fee we can improve the health infrastructure like our ambulance system, mobile medical unit and our health management information system, all of this can be seen in the context of our country moving towards achieving Universal Coverage in health."
A Public Health Emergency Fund can also be introduced, PHEF, to be established to assist St. Maarten in dealing with Public Health emergencies to further protect our health against the spread and outbreak of infectious and communicable diseases. "Our recent experiences with the epidemic of Chikungunya or the global transmission of diseases like bird flu or even Ebola highlight their rapid spread and demonstrate the serious health and economic consequences for vulnerable populations like ours." Similarly, with the advent of larger cruise ships, the examples of illnesses occurring on these vessels whilst in port which we experienced in 2012 and the Turks & Caicos Islands as well, highlight the urgent need for public health resources that are capable to deal with these risks when they occur.In addition to meeting the public health risks of infectious diseases, the health system could also partially address the needs arising from trauma and other serious events by providing access to first-line treatment in St. Maarten and assisting with transportation when locally unavailable.
