New hospital on Curaçao to be regional

Kingdom Relations Minister Plasterk hopes that the new hospital being built in Otrobanda will get a regional function, writes The Daily Herald. He indicated this during his short stay on Curaçao. The Dutch Minister requested a visit to the construction site for “Hospital Nobo Otrobanda” (HNO) as part of his one-day visit.

Plasterk’s colleague, the Dutch Minister of Health had dismissed the current St. Elisabeth Hospital on Curaçao as a regional medical facility because the health-care is supposedly inadequate for such. Consequently, patients from the Caribbean Netherlands islands Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba are now transferred to hospitals in Colombia or Guadeloupe for specialist treatment.

Curaçao Health Minister Ben Whiteman said that 22 million guilders is reserved for training in the future hospital, because a new building alone does not guarantee better care.