Final Video 5 Ministers Weekly Press Briefing May 21 2025 Mercelina and Brug Dutch St Maarten
FINAL Video 5 Minister Richelin Brug Dutch St Maarten Government Weekly Minister Press Briefing Wednesday May 21 2025 Full Question and Answer sessionMinister, thanks for the news flashback. All the news that you announced is news that’s passed a week ago, but I thank you for the flashback. Just last week,
Turning Point Dr. Makoo sent out a notification on young children as young as eight, nine years old, inhaling household products and the damage and some of the issues that they are facing with students. What have you done as the Minister of Health, along with even mental health, because they are having students or children that have to go to this facility also, to deal with that matter that just recently came out? I didn’t hear anything about that.
Also, you also mentioned there is a lot of new mental health cases. Has government provided any subsidy or any assistance to MHF so that they can deal with the extravagance, the extra amount of people that they now have to deal with? And how friendly it is at MHF for possible patients to get in. I can tell you I was there this week. And some of the questions that I was asked, I can’t even repeat it. You know, I went there to take someone, and it wasn’t easy. And the person’s a known person to MHF.
What about the unknown? Have government addressed these issues with MHF? Okay. I’ll start with the last one. I’m not too familiar with the procedures when someone is being admitted to it. So, I don’t know what exact questions was asked. However, when it comes to the service aspect of it, we are busy with Trimbus.
So, we’re talking about from the time a person is identified, if it has mental issues, straight through until their healing process, we are busy with Trimbus to help us create a system that goes a lot more smoother and is also more effective for the people of St. Martin. So, that would be the answer that I can provide at this current moment pertaining to that. With regard to funding, that was also a question that was brought to me in Parliament. There was one of the past ministers, Minister Janssen-Webster.
She allocated several funds for the mental health facilities. Unfortunately, when I came in, I did not receive. It wasn’t in the draft over documents. And also, I wasn’t aware of it until it was brought just a little bit prior to Parliament meeting. I immediately asked my policy advisor to look into it. We managed, actually, to find out exactly that what happened. Actually, it was past income, but there was an advice that had to be followed up with. But unfortunately, that was not done. We have, in the meantime, yesterday, I got word that we have actually made that transfer to mental health, which is 1.3, I believe, or 1.4. I’m not too sure about the amount that was transferred to mental health in order to assist them there with their challenges that they’re having. And again, we are actively busy dealing with the mental health situation. As you, as a public, also know, I’ve made it public that we did the soft component, the Trimbus, but we’re also dealing with NRP, and I will continue to look into it. One thing that was important to me is, that I have Talking about little children, just last week, the director of Turning Point, Dr. McCoo, a plan for the next few months. For that, it would be to deal with the new building.
And I and one thing I will see is that I have intention next week, God spare life. Yeah, next week, God spare life, that I will be given a quarterly start, and I will start to give a quarterly update pertaining to the hospital and the mental health project moving forward. The other question pertaining to the incident that you said, Dr. Mousavi? sent out a circular about young children that is still posted on my site. inhaling household products, even nail polish, nail remover, and the side effects that they’re having. What is being done to address that issue? Well, thank you. I haven’t I haven’t heard about it. That’s the first time I’m hearing about it. I will I will ask I will I will check to see if anyone from our department is doing anything about it. But definitely I will get back to you with regard to if something was done. I’ll get back to you if something was done. And if it’s not, we’ll definitely make sure that something is done about it. I will touch base with also a turning point. You said I’ll touch base with turning point as well. I have a direct line with her. Thank you, Minister Brugge, Emil. Minister, can you update us on what government’s current debts to SEDV and APS are? I mean, they’re substantial.
And since we’re in conversations with the Ministry of Finance about, again, debt to GDP ratio, my understanding is these debts to SEDV and APS, let’s say, are in the ballpark combined of about 100 million guilders. Are these debts converted into a loan agreement? Is government paying interest? Are there payment terms? How is government addressing in a structural way these outstandings? Okay, with regard to, I don’t have the information pertaining to the debt for APS. I would have to look that up and give that to you at a later date. With regard to EZV, yes, we do have a structural payment system for EZV. We have recently also injected an additional, I believe it’s a million. Yeah, we have recently injected an additional million to EZV in order to assist with some of the shortcomings of paying the, for example, the general practitioners, the psychologists and those type of things. So we’re actively busy actually trying. We have a structural payment system already, but we’re actually doing extras in order for us to try to reduce the debt that is owed to EZV.
But is the debt to S&V formalized in some sort of a loan agreement, and is there interest being paid on the money that government owes to S&V? Because S&V has to pay its bills even though government doesn’t pay, so it’s advancing money out of its own savings to cover government’s failure to pay, and they should receive interest on the money that’s owed to them. So is there a formal loan agreement, and is there interest being paid on that money? To my knowledge, no. But let me also get back to you with that particular question just to make sure that we are good. Okay. Thank you, Bibi. You have the floor. We have eight minutes left, so please make it quick. Then I only have one. Minister, a couple of months ago, there were some complaints, allegations, all kinds of things regarding sexual harassment. You said that was being investigated. Since then, it went quiet. Can you give us an update as to where that is? according to me the last thing I understand the it has the it has been the investigation has finished I have not received a report anything as yet I’m not too sure if the Prime Minister did but I can also inquire how far that is as well the relative departments took care of that actually so I’m going to inquire that as well for you I’m holding you to getting back to us. It’s a lot of things you have to get back to us with, Minister, 07:40because we really didn’t get answers from you today. I have no problem with that. I have. Thank you, Emil, you have the final question. For Minister of VSA, as our Prime Minister knows, as a doctor, when you look at the health of patients, treating patients…
https://stmaartennews.ai/full-road-closure-asphalt/