Dear Editor,
For several years now we have heard certain politicians talking about wanting to create medical tourism to generate more revenues for the island. Shouldn’t they focus instead on improving the health and prolonging the lives of our local people? Besides, they ought to know by now that medical tourism is already flourishing on the island; namely from the Dutch to the French side.
Every time I go to the eye specialist, where the state-of-the art equipment is impressive, the dentist or the Lab, or take someone to a general practitioner, I almost always meet people from the Dutch side in the waiting room. Practically all my acquaintances have told me they no longer go to doctors on the Dutch side. They are willing to pay their out-of-pocket money instead of making use of their health insurance, in order to get more reliable treatment.
I guess the medical savoir-faire in France was obtained from its population of almost 65 million, compared to Holland’s 17 million. They have always had a great deal more patients to experiment on and learn. Whatever the reason, French doctors seem to be more successful in their diagnoses and treatment of their patients.
Another valid reason for especially diabetics to cross the border is that medication is also way cheaper on the French side. I don’t know the reason for this, but I suppose that unlike the Dutch side, the cost of all medication is strictly controlled by the French authorities.
How did I find this out? One Friday afternoon, while my wife and I were shopping at Super U – another place patronized by lots of Dutch-side people – she reminded me that I was completely out of eye drops. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get them on the Dutch side until after the weekend, I decided to buy a bottle in Marigot.
To my surprise, I paid US $ 9.37 for the bottle at a French pharmacy: the identical eye drops – same brand, same strength – on the Dutch side cost Fls. 58.50 (US $32.50), three and a half times more expensive.
The very next time I entered a Dutch pharmacy, I asked the druggist why the big difference in price. He smiled and said, “We buy local.” By the way, local means Curaçao, as most suppliers of medical products are branches of Curaçao-based businesses. Their profit margin must be tremendous; nothing less than a get-rich-quick scam at the expense of sick people. To say their branches on St. Maarten are blooming would be an understatement. And of course, pharmacies and the hospital add their mark-up to these already outrageously marked-up prices.
It gets worse! I understand these Curaçao-based businesses pay their taxes via their head office in Curaçao. They have been doing this since the time of Claude Wathey, when St. Maarten and the other islands were treated as colonies of Curaçao. They make their millions on St. Maarten, but their tax money ends up in the coffers of the government of Curaçao.
I once asked a former prime minister about this matter. Her reply was: “It depends on how the business is structured.” If they are making tons of money on St. Maarten, shouldn’t they be paying taxes here, regardless of how the business is structured? Why should consumers on St. Maarten support the government of Curaçao?
Being a diabetic myself, I decided to make some further inquiries about the cost of some must-have medical supplies for diabetics. I compared the prices at two Dutch- with those of two French pharmacies and found the following:
Lantus SoloStar insulin pens cost Fls. 48.00 (US $26.67) and Fls. 40, 00 (US $22.22) respectively at both Dutch-side pharmacies, compared to US $14.38 and US $ 14.96 at the French pharmacies.
NovoRapid insulin pens cost Fls. 32.88 (US $18.27) and Fls. 27.40 (US $15.22) at the Dutch pharmacies, compared to US $11.41 and US $11.31 at the French pharmacies.
Pen needles (90) cost Fls. 45.00 (US $25.00) and Fls. 63.25 (U$ 35.14) at the Dutch pharmacies, compared to US $20.99 and US $21.19 at the French pharmacies for 100. The Dutch pharmacies actually remove 10 needles from each box.
Galvus Met 50mg/850mg 60 pieces cost Fls. 92.40 (US $51.33) and Fls. 99.00 (US $55.00) at the Dutch pharmacies, compared to US $20.99 and US $21.19 at the French pharmacies.
As stated above, Lantanoprost eye drops, which are also used by non-diabetics, namely people with glaucoma, cost Fls. 58.50 (US $32.50) at both Dutch pharmacies, compared to US $9.46 and US $9.37 at the French pharmacies. As you can see, the difference in the prices is rather significant.
Depending on a diabetic’s daily dosage, he or she will need 5 to possibly 10 long-acting insulin and 5 or more fast-acting insulin pens per month. I have not included all crucial items for diabetics, such as strips used with a glucose metre, lancets and others. However, I don’t doubt that all of these other items are cheaper on the French side.
One Dutch druggist told me he could sell these medications a lot cheaper if he ordered them from Holland, but he is not allowed to do so. The Health Inspectorate restricts the countries from which medical supplies can be ordered. Are they doing so to protect the vendors of these unacceptably overpriced products, or could the reason for this be that the cheaper the imported medication, the less turnover tax is collected by government? Do they consider revenue from taxes more important than the health of our people?
Thank God for SZV!! I assume that most people are insured by SZV, but, it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out that SZV and by extension the government, would save tens of thousands of guilders every month by making an arrangement with pharmacies on the French side to accept SZV-cards.
By doing so, they would most certainly make life affordable for uninsured diabetics and sick people in general. Supporting our local economy is without a doubt extremely important, but if our “local” businesses cannot provide reasonably-priced products, they oblige us to cross the border… or go online.
On behalf of all diabetics on the Dutch side and there are literally thousands of us, with more being diagnosed on a daily basis, I call on our Parliamentarians and especially the Minister of Health to make an in-depth inquiry into this matter without delay. Let’s wait and see if this new government will make a serious attempt to save lots and lots of money and make life for diabetics and other sick people affordable.
Clive Hodge
Dear Editor,
Former Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte was removed from Parliament by the police last Wednesday. That politician should be in prison! Last year, he was sentenced to three years in prison, because he had been bribed by gambling and mafia boss Francesco Corallo.
Who in turn was recently arrested in St. Maarten because of widespread fraud and money laundering and bribing politicians. On this island, he is now awaiting extradition to Italy because he is wanted in that country for large-scale fraud and money laundering - and bribing politicians.
Along with Schotte, Amparo dos Santos was also removed from the parliament hall. He is the brother of Robbie dos Santos, a gambling boss in Curaçao, who was convicted last year of large-scale fraud and money laundering. Robbie dos Santos is also a suspect in the investigation into the murder of politician Helmin Wiels, who was killed after he wanted to ask questions about the gambling mob.
The Mafia family Corallo has a long history in St. Maarten. Father Gaetano Corallo had to leave the island because he was in jail for many years in Italy. At that time, his son Francesco took over the international gambling empire and he expanded it even further. He laundered millions in especially the illegal Internet gambling - probably a lot of drug money too.
In June, however, Corallo Sr. returned to St. Maarten, to reclaim his gambling empire which his son appropriated illegally. Father Gaetano filed a lawsuit against his son Francesco. It is noteworthy that because of the father’s lawsuit, the son cannot yet be extradited to Italy. Francesco also claims to have a diplomatic passport, apparently, he received this from the government of the island of Dominica which made him and extraordinary ambassador of that country.
Gerrit Schotte is also - despite his conviction - still not in jail because he has appealed his case and it is not the custom in Curaçao for convicted politicians to resign on their own. Schotte was even able to participate in new elections last year which he almost won. Then a broad coalition of parties joined hands to prevent Schotte, which the judge dubbed a Corallo “puppet”, to become Prime Minister.
However, the new government made the mistake to appoint a number of MPs as ministers, but did not appoint new Members of Parliament simultaneously. Until Wednesday, when the new MPs took oath of office, the new coalition did not have a majority in Parliament. Schotte wanted to use the opportunity to take over the government, but the police has remarkably made an end to that action.
The fact that mafia bosses like Francesco Corallo and Robbie dos Santos are dealt with is the consequence of a large-scale investigation that is partly organized on our initiative in connection with the link between the underworld in the former Antillean islands, especially the gambling world, and the politics. In that investigation, our country works closely with the U.S. (for tax investigation) and Italy (for mafia).
People like Francesco Corallo have a lot of money. They can hire expensive lawyers such as Gerard Spong who once filed a lawsuit against me, because I called Corallo a mafia boss.
And they can hire many other expensive help like KPMG accountants, which for years has simply accepted the Corallo’s books. But it does me good that a start has been made. It is slowly becoming clear that the major villains and their political accomplices are also being tackled. People on the islands can also see that we can put an end to the colonization by the gambling mob. And a better future is possible.
Ronald van Raak
Dutch Member of Parliament
Dear Editor,
In Tuesday's paper, part of what was said by the Prime Minister is: ..Crime prevention is without a doubt everybody's business; police cannot do the work alone, etc. There are no deals to be made in crime prevention so the only other reason for me to wonder why all of a sudden this, is because of what the Public Prosecutor Ton Maan said not too long ago.
Dear Editor,
Many thanks for the math lessons in The Daily Herald’s Wednesday paper by Glenn Schmidt. I acknowledge that I made a huge miscalculation. The exact percentage was 29.3 instead of 26 of the eligible voters, who voted in 2014 for “autonomous territory within the Kingdom of The Netherlands”, which means he is almost correct with his 29.5%.
The point, however, remains that this is still not exactly a majority. Still 71.7% of the eligible voters did not vote for Schmidt’s preferred status. I also agree where he states that in a democracy the result of an election is decided by the voters who show up, and non-voters do not count. This, however, is not applicable to a referendum, where there is always a requirement of a minimum voter turn-out to validate the outcome. I believe that he is informed enough to know that.
I wonder why then does he omit to explain this to the people? Is it maybe because it does not serve his purpose? Our island council in the referendum ordinance established the minimum percentage of voter turn-out at 60, while only 45 per cent turned out. This makes the outcome invalid. A decision whereby the Island Council declares an, by its own criteria invalid outcome valid is in my book unheard of and arbitrary to say the least. Also, referring to the outcome of previous referenda to defend one’s point that the people now voted for autonomy makes no sense at all.
Taking into consideration the criteria of the referendum ordinance, the people did not speak out in favour of any alternate option, neither did they speak out against the present status as Public Entity. Schmidt is also correct when he says that I favour status quo and I do agree that this option received less votes than his preferred choice. However, seeing the invalidity of the referendum, there is no other option than to maintain the present status, which as one can imagine, the DP and I together with many others, are basically content with.
I am a little disappointed that Schmidt did not address the other points I made in my letter. I can understand though that he doesn’t want to touch the unlawful entering of an agreement by the commissioner of Constitutional Affairs. He himself has conducted similar practices in the time when he was commissioner. To use his own word “conveniently”, he avoids to comment on this, as well as the fact that this government slipped in the option of “Free Association”. This indeed is a recognized status by the UN, but did not appear on the ballot of the 2014 referendum. Using as an excuse that the DP government agreed to the present status without consulting the people sounds like a tit for tat.
By the way, to be exact, it was not just the DP government at the time. It was the entire island council who made that decision. This included Clyde van Putten with his PLP party, who is now one of the leading instigators behind a movement that is using the invalid outcome of the referendum to reach its goals.
Koos Sneek
Dear Editor,
Each year many children and young persons suffer terrible injuries caused by fireworks, including burns, loss of limbs and serious eye injuries.
It should be borne in mind that the sale, possession or use of fireworks should be illegal. Many of the fireworks that are offered for sale probably have not passed any quality control tests and are possibly defective.
Any persons found possessing fireworks should be held liable to prosecution. In addition there should be a specific offence throwing any ignited fireworks in public places. The only exception could be that “professional” type fireworks display is authorized under permit.
Apart from the risk of injury, fireworks can cause great distress and annoyance to elderly residents. They can set off intruder alarms, causing unnecessary extra demands on Garda (security) resources. They can also cause great distress to family pets and animals. Finally, there is always the possibility of outbreaks of fire in property if fireworks such as “rockets” continue to burn after landing.
We ask parents, government and teachers to be responsible in ensuring that children do not cause injury to either themselves or others on the already passed holidays season. If you possess bangers/fireworks please take the necessary precautions.
After more than four weeks of allowed use of big bangers, it’s clear that the use of these terrible explosives is going to continue beyond control.
Name withheld at author’s request.
