THE HAGUE - The Netherlands is phasing out personnel support to the hospitals of Curaçao and Sint Maarten. This is reported by the Dutch Minister of Health Ernst Kuipers in a letter about the state of affairs to the Dutch Parliament.
The American medical employment agency AMI stepped in in December when the omicron variant emerged. The Netherlands pays for the extra support to the hospitals. Kuipers writes that the number of active infections on the islands is decreasing. Especially in Sint Maarten, help was urgently needed because many healthcare staff got the COVID virus themselves.
The Netherlands also pays for the booster campaigns in Curaçao and Aruba. So people don't get the boost shot in large injection locations, but rather in community centers, churches and other trusted places in neighborhoods where the vaccination rate is still low.