CAY HILL:--- Recently a number of statements are being made again publicly regarding the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) by the minister of Health Care. We regret this development. The Prime Minister Mrs. Sarah Wescot fairly recently requested all parties to refrain from publicly addressing any issues and St. Maarten Medical Center has chosen to honor this request.
We agree with the Prime Minister that holding public discussions is not conducive to further improve the care we are giving to our patients. Our dedicated personnel, our patients who are residents of St. Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius, the surrounding islands and the tourists we serve, have suffered enough of the unfounded and negative public media display in recent months from the Minister of Health Care and certain members of parliament.
The Minister of Health Care has now chosen to publicly discuss his request to the Supervisory Council of the SMMC to reconsider our position and has publicly referred to our response while taking this again totally out of context. We feel it is correct to forward our official response given to the minister, enclosed as an attachment.
We will refrain from further comments by honoring the Prime Minister's request.
St. Maarten Medical Center will continue as usual, to improve the care and services to all our patients who are in need of treatment, for their well-being and for the benefit of their families.
We look forward to doing so in collaboration with the Government of St. Maarten and the Inspectorate of Health.
The Supervisory Council of the SMMC