Dear Editor,
On December 9 the funeral of my very good friend ChingMing took place and I was there as his only local – and very good – friend. This is because since the last more than 10 years he has been living and working here in St. Maarten – such has been in an island-country and with local people with which and whom he barely had any social cultural connection.
Up to this day such a requirement is not a factor that plays a role in the granting of a residence permit to live and work on our Dutch Caribbean islands nor in our mother country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is true that a little more knowledge is required when requesting the Dutch nationality but also is known that a little bit intelligent person can pass the related exam by just following a course of a couple of months.
Receiving – especially a permanent residence paper – to live on any of our islands should be considered of such an importance that every recipient of it should be filled with pride for the benefits it brings along. ChingMing’s departure would then have also been much more socially – and personally – fulfilled.
In my opinion it would be – for the petitioner of a residence paper as well as for our immigration department – more fruitful and beneficial to provide more attention to mentioned social cultural requirement.
Elco Rosario
Dear Editor,
In my early days growing up on Aruba in the Village, when the postman came to deliver mail and among the envelopes there was a yellow one, there was sudden anxiety. Those yellow envelopes were telegrams and telegraphs and were almost always sent in connection with death overseas. I can imagine that a great deal of your readers would be asking themselves “What is he talking about?” because technology has rendered almost all these things obsolete or given them another name. Texting and email have taken over, not to mention video calls.
Sadly to have to mention though, that because negative news spreads faster and goes a longer way than good news, it seems as if there is more bad news than good news. So, at the same time and for the same reason, secrets are also exposed quicker and also spread faster. When I opened my WhatsApp this morning to check out my greetings, there was a text from Curaçao which was not so nice. and in which three prominent citizens of this part of the kingdom, including St. Maarten, were mentioned in connection with not so admirable behavior.
What I was taught and the way I have experienced life, I am convinced that no one is above God. We are taught to turn the other cheek and to forgive because of Romans 12:17-19 and Deuteronomy 32:35. I have seen this play out in life. For years now I have been trying to highlight that the Netherland Antilles are too small. Everybody knows everybody and at one time sooner or later, “what goes around comes around” is going to come in play. It will happen here quicker than larger nations.
We tend to always ignore what the old people used to say. Anyone who is into doing mysterious things should not ignore sayings like “the longest rope has an end” and the Dutch one “Al is de leugen o zo snel, de waarheid achterhaalt hem wel”. Again it is about the money. My father used to tell me, money is not a cure. Money can get you a lot of things but it cannot cure things. I used to be an altar boy, and in so doing attended many funerals in the church over the years. The majority were open caskets and I cannot remember ever seeing money in a casket yet.
There is a joke that a very rich man requested in his will for his wife to bury him with all his money. She did. She wrote out a check for a very large amount (eight billion) in his name and put it in his suit pocket in the casket. The text that I received mentioned the millions of guilders that these three persons accumulated over the years, but it also hinted that these persons operated like a green snake in green grass. No Genesis 3:19?
One of the things that shaped me and that I will never forget is, before I started to sell the newspapers and I asked my father for some small change, he would always look for some chore for me to do and give my mother the money to give to me. Genesis.3:19. You have to work for what you want. And I have never regretted that.
Work does not kill anyone, he would say. People kill each other, people die in motor-vehicle accidents, people die from illness, people die from drowning, but work does not kill anyone, and every one’s job is as valuable as the other’s.
Sharing is mentioned in many different ways in the bible. Luke 6:38 is one of them. I believe that sharing and love go hand in hand. My question in this whole matter is: What plays around in one’s mind who behaves in this manner?
My father used to say, “The only time I see myself is when I look in the mirror. And because I know that we are all equal, I have to look for the positive in people and hope it reflects in me.” It took me a while to understand what he meant. Over the years it made a lot of sense and trust is one of the things one develops when looking for the positive in others.
Would it not be great if people would use their talent for doing the right thing?
Russell A. Simmons
Dear Editor,
There has been much talk of colonialism and colonialists in St. Maarten in recent years. The ending of the colonial relationship is presented as a key to social advancement.
Colonies were created to create wealth for the metropolitan countries and it is argued that this is the real colonialism. Other aspects of colonialism followed, like cultural colonialism, but the original was the creation of wealth for the colonizing countries. The history of sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean certainly supports this.
It seems that it would be productive for the conversation on the subject in St. Maarten if we were to establish the real value or burden of the “colonial relationship” in the case of St. Maarten and the Kingdom of the Netherlands so that measurable wealth-moving relationship can be known with some degree of accuracy. If we knew that, the conversation would be a great deal clearer.
The creation of this relationships “profit and loss” could easily be created by consultants who would measure flows of value of every sort between the Netherlands and St. Maarten with a view to establishing which party benefits or suffers from the relationship. The tools, the analytical systems and the data should all be available.
The study and reporting would need to be done by an entity that could not be accused by any group of being partial; indeed it should be an entity that enjoys wide social trust.
We have reports on pretty much everything. Why not also on this fundamental question which is argued by some as being the case for major social change?
Robbie Ferron
Dear Editor,
I am deeply concerned about the shortage of qualified psychiatrists on the island.
The COVID-19 has resulted in devastating consequences to our country and our economy that was still recovering from Hurricane Irma. Although this has a major negative effect on the socio-economic wellbeing of the people of Sint Maarten, it also has an enormous negative impact on psychological and emotional wellbeing of the people as well.
Studies have shown that the pandemic led to a substantial increase in different mental health problems, psychiatric disorders and suicides which St. Maarten has been plagued with before and even more so since the pandemic. The lack of sufficient professional expertise is of concern as St. Maarten has also been struggling to get enough psychiatrists and other mental health care workers even before the pandemic started.
The pandemic has shed light now more than ever, how important mental health is and has also magnified our shortages as a country when it comes to mental health care. We cannot continue to do our fellow brothers and sisters of this country a disservice when it comes to their mental health.
As a Member of Parliament, I have been paying keen attention behind the scenes to a particular situation that I consider disheartening. I have had numerous meetings with the Minister of Health with regard to this situation and at one point, I thought that a resolve had been met, only to find out that initially Mental Health Foundation was not willing to come to a resolve with the 2 psychiatrists concerned .
A little background information: in 2019, two BIG-registered psychiatrists came to settle in St. Maarten with a mission to help the people of St. Maarten with mental health problems and improve the quality of psychiatric care and the mental health care in general. They started working for the Mental Health Foundation but resigned due to internal matters at MHF. However, these two psychiatrists didn’t want to give up on their mission and saw the potential for improvement of individual and public psychiatric care on the island; therefore, they made the decision to open their own psychiatric institution.
In the beginning of 2021, they submitted an application to the Minister of Public Health and filed for an institutional license and ministerial decrees were needed in order for them to continue to work as psychiatrists. At that time suicides and incidents with mentally challenged people were already rising quickly and the media frequently reported about it. Unfortunately their application was denied.
Prior to their application, their ministerial decrees were revoked because they were hired by Mental Health Foundation and were therefore only allowed to practice under the Mental Health Foundation. Different health care institutions, health care associations and patients wrote support letters for the two psychiatrists to the Minister to no avail. As a result, the psychiatrists started legal procedures against the Government of St. Maarten, in particular the Minister of Health, in which the main procedure is still pending.
They felt it necessary because they didn´t get an opportunity to explain their side of the story in addition to several false assumptions and accusations made. An example, of a false assumption was that the two psychiatrists would only treat clients who would yield the highest profits. In my opinion, if this was truly a concern then clauses could be put in the ministerial decree or policies would be an easy solution if this would be the case.
I must note as a representative of the people, I must remain very active as a citizen in my dear St. Maarten land and I can vouch for these 2 psychiatrist as being primarily about the care for the people of St. Maarten because I have had visits, many calls and inbox messages from individuals thanking me for standing up on the floor of parliament to get some kind of recuse for these 2 physiatrists because of the good work they had done for their clients and were still doing without compensation,
I am a firm believer in processes and procedures and following the laws and policies of the land. However, when the parties involved in the advisory role to the Minister represent a conflict of interest in which they are unable to deliver unbiased opinions and advice, I must question the process and the decisions taken as a result of their advice.
With our current situation on the island and the evident lack of qualified psychiatrists – can we really continue with the current status quo with an overburdened Mental Health Foundation which lacks enough psychiatrists to truly deliver quality care for all? It also leads me to question if such a decision is really and truly in the best interest of the people of St. Maarten? Is Mental Health considered a monopoly on the island? Is it truly MHF way or no way at all?
I am prepared to take this matter further and bring it to the floor of Parliament because clearly our current system is not properly functioning, while lives have been lost and many more lives are at stake. Our people deserve proper psychiatric care on the island, and we cannot play politics nor favoritism where this is concerned. As a representative of the people of Sint Maarten, I will do my due diligence with all matters of this country and continue to speak up in the best interest of the people.
I am making another plea to the Minister of Health to take a stand in the benefit of all people of St. Maarten. These psychiatrists deserve a chance to continue to work in the best interest of the people in St. Maarten because every citizen is affected in one way or the other by mental health situations on this island.
Do not allow mental health to continue to suffer at the hands of those who do not have the best interest of the people at heart.
Member of Parliament Angelique Romou
Dear Editor,
Alex Richardson (AR) is hereby appealing to the Ambt. Court 1st pertaining to the imposed pension plan of the Government (APS).
According to the laws, someone, a so-called “sleeper” in the APS system and not contributing financially to the current pension plan of the government (APS) since November 30, 2013, is still obligated to follow the ongoing changing laws implementations.
AR submitted a letter dated 8/27/2018 to APS at which time, the pensionable age was set at 60 years and today AR is facing a pensionable of 62 years and hasn’t contributed since 2013 in the APS system. I do understand that the laws (Landsverordening v/d 11 April 2016) were changed and approved officially but that doesn’t mean it is right. It is for me impossible that the laws changed and approved are affecting me directly while AR has nothing to do with the APS since November 30, 2013, and has not been in the position to build up any additional pension funds at my 60th birthday and that’s okay but subject to changes that were done after the year 2013.
This is considered inhuman to me and even though I complained to the respected Fin. Minister, nothing was done and any consideration was adhered to and the responsible law makers seem to even care about any grievances stated in my letter. AR has followed all the steps and it seems to have fallen on deaf hears and the law that AR considered inhuman isn’t going to change until the courts get involved and review all sides.
AR even attempted to scheduled meetings with the unions and wasn’t able to get any response from such unions. The norm seems to be acceptable to all and therefore reaching my end of possibilities, AR has therefore decided to appeal to the court. The Ombudsman has clearly outlined every individual aspect that respectfully with no outcome in the near future expected and no consideration of the changing laws that are affecting AR even though he has not contributed to the APS pension since November 20, 2013.
It is time for the Ambt. Court to be called into the situation and have the Ambt. Court give a judgement as AR considered that AR rights were rudely neglected (inhuman) as AR stopped contributing to the APS respected authorities. This case needs to be judged and AR reserves the rights for the case to move forward and be presented to the courts.
AR strongly believes that the laws of 2013 should be apply to him at the time AR stopped contributing to the APS pension fund and not what is currently taking place with him as a “sleeper” pertaining to the changing laws.
Alex Richardson
