Dossier Koninkrijksrelaties reported the following:

There are major concerns about the continuity of the transport of patients from Sint Eustatius and Saba to hospitals in Curacao and Aruba now that the Sint Maarten Civil Aviation Authority has decided not to allow Medicair to fly to Juliana Airport any longer.

After consultation with the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, the implementation of that decision has been suspended. “As a temporary interim solution, Medicair is allowed to continue flying to Sint Maarten for the next two weeks. Permission was granted for this last Friday,” according to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. In the meantime, alternatives are being frantically sought. One of these is for Sarpa to transport patients from Sint Maarten to Colombia.

The Sint Maarten Civil Aviation Authority has been in talks with the management of Curacao-based Z Air and its affiliated Medicair for some time now to gain insight into the state of maintenance of the fleet registered in the United States. That is the reason why Z Air has not yet been granted permission to operate passenger flights between Curacao and Sint Maarten. Medicair aircraft are also registered outside the Kingdom, but they were allowed until recently.

“Due to procedural ambiguities, there was a delay in the landing of the Medicair air ambulance at the airport of Sint Maarten last week”, according to VWS. The subsequent crisis meeting led to the suspension of the decision to ban Medicair. Alternatives are currently being developed. Sarpa may be called upon for this. However, they are again not allowed to fly to Curacao and Aruba by the local aviation services, which means that patients from the Windward Islands will have to be transferred to a hospital in Colombia.

A second option that is being investigated is that Medicair will fly to F.D. Roosevelt Airport on Sint Eustatius. In that case, patients from Saba will be transported to the neighboring island by helicopter. The disadvantage is that patients cannot be stabilized prior to the flight to Curacao or Aruba, as is done in the hospital on Sint Maarten. “We are actively monitoring the situation and are in contact with the relevant authorities to ensure that patients receive the care they need,” reports the spokesperson for VWS.

Earlier this year, a crisis situation also arose regarding the transport of patients from Bonaire to Curacao and Aruba after client Fundashon Mariadal decided to have Sarpa carry out ambulance flights instead of Medicair. This was thwarted by the authorities in Willemstad and Oranjestad. Since then, patients have been flown from Bonaire to Colombia by Sarpa. The ministry has temporarily hired Medicair for so-called ‘code red’ patients.

This issue prompted VWS to instruct senior civil servant Erwin Arkenbout to investigate an “optimal solution”. His report is now on the desks of those involved, but it seems that his conclusions have been overtaken by current events and he can start again. Aviation experts see the situation as confirmation that the political reorganization of the Caribbean part of the Kingdom failed to properly regulate air traffic between the islands.

dossierkoninkrijksrelaties.nl