SMMC Medical Director Dr. Felix Holiday during Friday’s Parliament meeting.
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PHILIPSBURG--St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) Medical Director Dr. Felix Holiday said the COVID-19 pandemic has had serious financial consequences for SMMC.
He told Members of Parliament (MPs) on Friday that the hospital suffered a loss of revenue in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said this loss was a direct result of having to reduce and/or halt elective, non-urgent care for several months while the hospital’s operational cost continued.
As a result of this, SMMC had to make use of its reserves in 2020.
Additional expenses listed were for the special facilities, including the auxiliary care facility, additional staff, purchase of medication, personal protective equipment (PPE), etc., which have been covered largely by the Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport VWS and the Trust Fund managed by the World Bank.
For this year, the Netherlands has so far been covering the cost for personnel at the auxiliary care facility and has agreed to continue to provide this support until August 31.
Dr. Holiday added that approximately NAf. 500,000 has not been covered for the year 2020 and is an additional expense for SMMC.
According to him, the cancellation and downscaling of elective services for several months has had a very large effect on SMMC. “Even though SMMC was able to restart elective services late 2020, there is a substantial downfall in revenue. Therefore, SMMC has requested liquidity support from government to the value to NAf. 17.8 million.”
He said this request for financial support from government was made to meet the hospital’s projected financial obligations, including its current investments and essential upgrades.
In providing an update on this request, Dr. Holiday said that this support has not been received by SMMC to date.
