Dear Editor,
Every day in our public institutions, hard-working civil servants serve our people under pressure, with limited staff and limited resources. They deserve our thanks and respect. But even with much service being given, we must still go the extra mile. We must learn to define and separate what truly needs immediate assistance and urgent attention, from what can wait for a scheduled automated appointment.
That is where we are failing – not because we don’t care, but because we have allowed the computer and Artificial Intelligence to make decisions that only a human heart can make.
And so the question is who are we really leaving behind?
Every day, vulnerable people must visit public institutions not by choice, but for their very existence and wellbeing. They come in different ways. Brought by a family member, a friend, a neighbour. By public transportation, then forced to walk a long distance in the sun to their final destination. Or simply dropped off by a busy loved one who must rush back to work. And then they are left alone to figure it all out.
Who are they? They are our seniors. The men and women who built this island with their bare hands. Standing long in line, struggling to hear, to see, to walk, and still having to come back tomorrow. Our disabled – our brothers and sisters with physical, visual, hearing or mental challenges – for whom every staircase, every unclear instruction, every extra trip is a mountain. Our mothers with babies, holding a child in the heat, with sometimes nowhere to sit, nowhere to feed, told to wait for hours. Parents with school children, who took their child out of school to get a document. Every hour waiting is an hour of lost learning for that child. Our less fortunate – who have no car, no money for two bus fares, no phone credit for an automated callback. When we say “come back tomorrow”, for them it may mean no food tomorrow. And our homeless – who often have no address for the computer to accept. Yet they are still human. They still need an ID, medical care, and help to exist.
For all of them, an automated appointment system that treats everyone the same is not equal service. It is unequal suffering, because the machine cannot see the person.
We have modernised. We now give appointments by computer. The system gives a date and time.
But a computer cannot see urgency. It cannot see a mother whose baby is crying for whatever the reason may be. It cannot see an elderly man whose chest is hurting. It cannot see a man in a wheelchair who has no way to get back up the hill.
Only a human being can. Only the human touch of someone who goes beyond duty, who truly investigates the situation of that person in dire need, can understand that this is sometimes a life or death moment. Our realities have proven time and time again that at times these elderly persons may never come back. Until we read about that individual in the obituaries.
This is why, while we advance in technology, there will be times when we must step away from the computer and go back to traditional humane service. A few minutes of extra effort can save a life and relieve stress for an entire family.
And so I am proposing a simple, low-cost, high-impact solution for every public institution:
PHYSICAL URGENT LOCATION LINE simply called the PULL solution.
PULL is not a new department. It is a clearly marked, physically accessible, human-staffed desk at the entrance of every public institution, separate from the automated line.
It is staffed by an experienced officer with the heart and the authority to use discretion. To define and separate. To decide: “This case cannot wait for the automated schedule. We will help this person now.”
Not “go and come back.” But “come, let me help you now – because I can.”
And PULL must be combined with special transportation to truly improve the quality of life of our people. What good is urgent help if the person cannot get home safely?
Therefore I propose the following:
1. Our Government and Institutions must empower its front-line staff. Give them the authority to override the schedule when humanity demands it. You will have less repeat visits, shorter lines, and more grateful citizens. Efficiency will improve.
2. Our Business Community: I appeal to you. You have vans, shuttles, drivers. Partner with government to sponsor a small Community Compassion Shuttle connecting Government Building, SZV, SMMC, Tax Office and Social Affairs. Priority for seniors, disabled, mothers. This is corporate social responsibility that our people will never forget. Your logo on a shuttle that brings a grandmother home safely is worth more than any advertisement. And so the Helping Hands Foundation can continue to play a key role in all this.
3. For Our People: This shuttle will mean a senior does not have to walk in the sun. A disabled person does not have to worry how to get back. A mother can sit with dignity.
PULL will also provide: shaded seating, water, a changing area for mothers, wheelchair access, and for our homeless and less fortunate – a direct warm handover to Social Affairs, not a computer rejection for lack of address. This is simply for us to demonstrate as a community who we are, and what this vulnerable group means to us as a people and country. We are a small island of 40,000 souls. We are not 17 million people in the Netherlands where you can be a number in a system. Here, we know each other. We are family.
Technology must serve humanity. Humanity must never serve technology. Much service is being given. Now let us add that extra mile of human discretion and a ride home. It will save lives. It will relieve stress. It will remind us who we are as St. Maarteners.
Let us bring back the human being at the desk who has the heart to say: “I see you, and I will help you now.”
Achken Roberto Richardson
