PHILIPSBURG: --- Patients on St. Maarten have to remain much longer on the waiting list and continue to travel overseas for much needed medical care as the company charged with obtaining the finances ($65M) is nowhere close to finding financiers even though it has been one year now since the bidding process took place and INSO won the disputed contract.
It is not yet comprehensible how SZV could hire a KPMG and is paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and these so called professionals did not even secure a business plan and or financiers prior to putting the project on the bid.
One would think that anyone who wants to construct a building or any project would ensure they have the monies in place prior to hiring contractors that can take the government of St. Maarten to court. Like everyone who wants to build a home would ensure they have monies or finances in place prior to hiring contractors to build their homes or any property.
Indeed since the contract was awarded to INSO there have been some delays with the court case initiated by VAMED, but today that is a closed chapter because VAMED got a sweet settlement of Euros 1.M in order to withdraw all court litigations. While this process was taking place it appears as though SZV was paying KPMG and its group of lawyers’ monies to sit back and relax instead of having them put a proper business plan in place for the New General Hospital and also have them continue with securing financiers.
It’s a pity the Minister of Health Emil Lee continues to sugar coat the problem in other media houses but when posed with real questions he is quick to say he does not understand the questions but continues to give unsubstantiated responses that are not at relevant to the questions posed.
Last week Wednesday SMN News asked the Minister for an update on the financing for the construction of the New General Hospital and he said he did not have an update. Indeed this is funny since the people of St. Maarten only heard about the New General Hospital and VAMED for months whenever the Minister took the podium on Wednesday mornings. These past weeks the Minister has not touched on the topic seemingly because he was advised to leave the project rest for now.
Three months after the Euros 1M and still the project cannot get off the ground while patients on St. Maarten have to continue to travel overseas for treatment, and in many cases cannot get their daily allowances or when they pay for their treatment SZV would give them endless headache to refund the patients while they continue to dish out the people’s money to pay KPMG.
