PHILIPSBURG – Minister of Public Health Emil Lee held a follow-up care contract meeting with SZV and Coomeva, which is the Colombian company that manages the needs of patients for medical care in Colombia, in order to discuss several issues, and come up with solutions for the way forward.
“Considering that 60% of the medical referrals abroad are related to diagnosing medical issues, one of the main outcomes of the meeting was a solution to help reduce this amount. Instead of patients going to Colombia for diagnosis, Coomeva will design and propose a program in which in alliance with selected Colombian providers (hospitals) certain specialists will visit St. Maarten periodically in order to support the local diagnosis of the patients, and make the referral process more efficient,” Minister Lee stated.
This will also provide an opportunity for visiting physicians to follow-up on patients that received care in Colombia, continued Minister Lee in a press briefing on Wednesday, May 18. In addition Minister Lee is working together with the French side to utilize their Tele-medicine room, which allows for remote diagnosis of patients by means of telecommunication technology.
