VAMED (possibly a derivative of the word that describes the result of nausea?) got their pound of flesh and now we, a tiny 16 square mile half-of-an-island country can move on and build a new hospital. Kudos to all involved who made this (hopefully last) hurdle go away. While I still can’t grasp the concept of a company who bids higher on a specific project taking the principle of that project to court for awarding it to another company whose bid was LOWER (duhhh!), even more baffling is the fact that the presiding judge ruled IN FAVOR of the former!! But be that as it may, instead of dealing with delays in getting the hospital built (which prolongs our rather expensive needs to seek health care abroad) I think that by paying a sum of “ransom money” to get rid of the big bad wolf from out-of-town is a GOOD thing. And by the way, MP Rudolph Samuel’s suggestion that VAMED should consider giving back this blood money to our community is ALSO a GOOD thing. Why? Because a little community like St. Maarten being bullied by a multinational company that does business all over the world is a BAD thing!
Michael J. Ferrier