WILLEMSTAD - From January 1, 2022, general practitioners in Curaçao will not issue an AO statement or medical certificates. The Curaçao Association of General Practitioners (CHV) follows the Dutch guidelines for handling medical data. These guidelines state that the treating physician does not make written or oral statements about his own patient, in which he expresses his opinion about the (medical) suitability or unsuitability of the patient to do or not do certain work-related activities.
This is stated by the CHV in a press release. According to the CHV, the AO check is not a GP's competence. The GP is not trained to assess a client's fitness for work. This is a specialization in itself within Dutch medicine, according to the CHV board.
In addition, the AO checks unnecessarily add to the workload of the GP. Furthermore, the AO checks can damage the doctor-patient relationship due to a conflict of interests.
“As the attending physician, the general practitioner must serve the patient's interest. In addition to the patient's health, the checking doctor must also serve the interests of the insurer or employer," writes the CHV board. Finally, providing employers with any assessment of a patient's fitness for work violates the rules of conduct of doctors.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Curaçao, the Social Insurance Bank (SVB) was forced in 2020 to adapt its working method in accordance with the guidelines of the KNMG. The SVB has completely taken the AO checks out of the hands of the general practitioners and has established this as a new procedure. The general practitioners no longer carry out AO checks for the SVB. As of 1 January 2022, the CHV will also stop the AO checks for non-SVB insured persons.
The CHV also uses the guidelines of the Dutch federation of doctors KNMG regarding statements for school. This was already communicated to the school boards in 2015. This year, the CHV repeated this announcement to the Minister of Education. The minister acknowledges and endorses the CHV's position and policy, according to the local GP association.