WILLEMSTAD - The measures taken by the government to reduce costs in the health sector are not yielding enough. That is according to the chairman of the Financial Supervision Board (Cft) Raymond Gradus.
Gradus is referring to the cost-saving schemes drawn up by the 'Taskforce Market Regulation and Financing of Healthcare Sector' led by Caryl Monte. The following points are most important in this respect: lowering the costs for medicines, lowering the costs for specialists who work outside the hospital and fewer paid travels for medical treatments abroad.
These measures are partly implemented by Social Insurance Bank (SVB). According to Gradus, the measures should yield 70 million guilders in the first year. So far, the measures have only yielded 21 million.
Of those 21 million, 15 million is because there have been fewer paid travels for medical treatments abroad. This is largely due to the corona crisis. Gradus says that he is afraid that costs will rise again when the corona measures no longer apply.
According to the chairman of the CFT, the costs of health care in Curaçao are one of the highest compared to other countries, including the Caribbean region.
At the end of October, Gradus had a virtual meeting with the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health and the director of the SVB. In it, Gradus indicated that even harder work must be done on a drastic decrease in the costs of the health sector. "If not, there is nothing for the Curaçao government to do but to increase the health care costs for the population."
According to him, both the ministers and the SVB have promised to work on this further decrease in costs.