Dear Editor,
This is the way that our social insurance SZV treats patients. Days after ninety-five per cent of St. Maarten was destroyed following category 5 Hurricane Irma, all patients in Colombia were sent the following message:
“Please find an update after the passing of Hurricane Irma last Tuesday. SZV’s office has suffered some hurricane damage, but we will start up our systems to be operational as soon as power and internet have been restored and are stable. We hope that this happens in the course of this week.
“In the meantime, it was decided that all patients that have been dismissed should remain at the hotel they were originally staying. We will evaluate next week Monday (or as the situation changes) when it will be safe to return patients to Sint Maarten. The daily allowance or meal plan should be continued.
“All scheduled regular, non-urgent appointments (including appointments that have expired) will be rescheduled with priority once SZV is operational. Appointments for urgent cases will be dealt with on an individual basis.
“We have a team of SZV stationed in Curaçao and we are available here to answer all your questions.
Kindest Regards,
On behalf of the director of SZV.”
On the 27th of September, we were informed that we would be going back to SXM on the 29th - return to possible homelessness, joblessness and a despondent future ahead. We were told that we were only allowed 10 kg of weight- including your pocketbook. Meaning that basically everything you left SXM with, you had to leave behind. We were also instructed to leave our suitcases, as well as money to pay overweight, with other patients that were left behind, entrusting our possessions to total strangers.
After much protest, the weight limit was increased to 32kg. Two hours prior to departure, 3:00am SXM time, receptionist at our hotel knocks on our doors and informs everyone that the weight limit is no longer 32kg, but has been reverted back to 10kg. So not only do we have to repack our belongings to accommodate the new limit, we have to wake the other patients who are left behind to hand them our suitcases and overweight money - all of this at midnight SXM time (St. Maarten time is one hour ahead of Colombia's). Due to protest action they decided to leave us where we were for the time being. A few days later, however, we were given a threatening ultimatum, as depicted below:
Informative Letter from SZV & Coomeva International Office. “A new charter flight has been arranged for patients’ and companions’ return to St. Maarten. The flight has been scheduled for Friday, October 6, in the morning (pending time). The maximum weight allowed per passenger is 10 kilograms (20 pounds). SZV will forward secured baggage to St. Maarten at a later date, which will be informed as soon as this is coordinated.
“Personal belongings would be stored in a safe place, this will be arranged by Coomeva’s International Office. SZV informs all patients and companions that refusal to travel will result in the discontinuance of allowance, hotel coverage and return flight, without further discussion.
“The director of operations from SZV flew in the first charter, and ensured that the plane is comfortable, has the amenities and a nurse on board. Please be advised to start arrangements and preparations for this flight.
Sincerely,
Coomeva’s International Team.
On arrival at airport, since we were left with no choice, driver was seemingly unaware as to where to take us. We were left at the check-in area for two hours, with no seats and in uncomfortably chilly air. Finally, we were attended to. The plane was very small, and had no toilet facilities and very little leg room. Patients had to be lifted onto said flight, duration which is six-and-a-half hours.
Can you imagine embarking on a flight, one leg of said flight is three hours in duration, with scarcely enough room to stretch or a bottle of water to quench one’s thirst, as patients? Why put us through this ordeal, when commercial flights were to be resumed at the international airport of St. Maarten in three days, on October 10, 2017? When this was brought to SZV’s attention, we were told that the cost of a normal charter flight would be “too costly” for them.
As if this was not bad enough, we were given no inclination as to if or when our suitcases would be brought to the island, and if compensation would be made if our suitcases were lost or stolen. This is a very unfathomable way for human beings, much less patients, to be treated.
It is now a month and one day with no luggage and nobody can tell us when it is arriving. As far as we were informed by people responsible in Colombia, our luggage is now in the hands of the Red Cross. Strangely patients who left Colombia ten days after us, not only were they able to leave with their luggage, they were put up in hotel overnight in Curaçao and Santo Domingo to get to SXM the following day. That very route was suggested by us to the people in Colombia responsible to get us home. Instead they chose a more expensive way, chartering the small plane, which we later found out was an air ambulance.
It definitely costs less from Curaçao/Santo Domingo to SXM as our tickets from Colombia via our regular airline Copa, are already paid for. Other patients came with Copa.
We went through a hurricane cat 5 plus, some of us do not have a house to go to, lost everything the only thing that we have was the clothing that was left behind in Colombia. We are recuperating from a sickness and the same insurance company is putting us under more stress that we are already dealing with, I would like to ask SZV what is next for the group that came back under this inhumane situation?
My conclusion is that SZV has the monopoly and therefore they can do what pleases them. Today no one can tell us when we are going to receive our suitcases. I am pleading with the Minister of Health, Mr. Lee, to kindly look into this unjust situation and bring clarity to us and see to it that this situation never happens again to anyone. It seems to me that we are being punished.
Outraged patient
Name withheld at author’s request.
