PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — The Honorable Minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor (VSA) Richard Panneflek announced that Relief Support was requested for the Ambulance Department by the Ministry of VSA through the Ministry of Public Health in the Netherlands (VWS). The request was approved by the Department of Foreign Affairs (BZK) and organized in collaboration with our counterparts from the Regional Ambulance Organization (RAV) from Brabant-Midden-West-Noord.
The first relief support mission was executed from June 26th to July 10th 2020, with 6 staff members, including certified ambulance nurses and ambulance drivers, working along with the local Ambulance staff.
A second relief support mission was executed recently from September 4th to September 25th 2020, with an ambulance team of 6 members from RAV Brabant-Midden-West-Noord and Ambulance South Holland-South. They provided 3 weeks of much needed relief to our ambulance team of professionals on the island.
“The relief effort was a joint operation between the relief team from the Netherlands and St. Maarten to which our team felt very grateful,” said Ambulance Department Head Cylred Richardson.
This allowed our local team some much needed downtime to relax, as they have been working several shifts due to the department being short staffed.
Minister Panneflek is proud of the professionalism demonstrated by the relief team, management and staff of the Ambulance Department in making this relief effort one to remember. For such he would like to extend a heartfelt Thank You!
