A completed financial report indicates that the BES islands – Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba – mostly sent their patients for advanced treatment to one of the Dutch islands, such as Aruba or Curaçao.
This was published in ‘The Caribbean Netherlands Health System Review’. The report mentions that the BES islands themselves do not have the necessary facilities and equipment to handle severe cases, which is why they need to send their people abroad.
“More than 90% of the referrals from Sint Eustatius and Saba in 2023 were to Sint Maarten, while in the case of Bonaire, 81.3% of the referrals were to Aruba and Curaçao,” according to the report.
In other more severe cases, patients are sent to Colombia and the Netherlands. Sometimes, health authorities from St. Eustatius and Saba also send patients to Bonaire. Between 2017 and 2023, a total of 5658 patients were sent abroad. The number of transports abroad slightly decreased in the years 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19, which affected travel and led to the postponement of many medical treatments abroad.
The costs for medical treatment abroad are not cheap. In 2023, the logistics and medical costs for treatments outside the islands totaled 43.7 million dollars, with an average of 37.9 million dollars between 2019 and 2022 (an average of 16.6 million for logistics costs and 21.3 million dollars for medical expenses related to referrals).
