The director appeared on Noticia Cla, with Tito Lacle asking good questions.
First, I will tell you what I appreciated. Later at the end, you will find a disturbing oddity.
I listened to the whole interview in spite of the fact that my Dutch is subpar, which shows how interested I am in the subject.
Vroegop is straight to the point, and outspoken, he beams as he speaks. He defined himself from the get go as a father and a husband, he obviously has a good administrative background to serve as our leader, at the helm of the hospital — a topic extensively discussed in this column, for being the center of epic waste, with an unholy trinity at the heart of the confusion, the government, a foundation, and our national health system.
Tito’s first question was, why a Dutchman, why not a local, and Vroegop focused on his team which needs to work together to deliver, defusing the question we always ask about the availability of local talent.
Vroegop also went on to explain the Colombian capacity that is used to mitigate the sickness-load here. I welcomed the explanation. Ordinarily the hospital doesn’t provide any info about patients flown out for treatment, only the local media does, fast to reveal how expensive this exercise is, and how futile.
The director of the hospital was making a case for more beds, to prevent sending patients overseas but how can we actually tell how much is a bed and how much the saving, if we are not sure about our real expenses?
Send the overcapacity overseas, or expand the hospital further, that is something to ponder, in view of the fact that the director feels the location of the hospital is wrong, mid-prime tourist area. Did I hear he said he would have liked to relocate it?
The academic program at EPI got a scathing report, ten years of paralysis in our education system, no improvements, no responsiveness. The school keep churning out inadequately-prepared graduates, and no one does anything about it, besides making empty promises.
The young men and women of our island who think they can find employment at HOH at the end of their EPI studies, are wrong. The hospital will no longer accept them because they are inadequately-prepared and require a huge individual investment to fix.
The school has been unresponsive for ten years.
Regarding the home-grown accreditation program, AruBig, the brain child of our current Minister of Health that is reportedly going to perhaps replace the reputable Dutch accreditation system — it has many flaws. It doesn’t control quality, it takes too long to deliberate, it is too bureaucratic, plus a once in a lifetime accreditation, is not enough. AruBig, according to the HOH director, will compromise quality of health care on the island.
According to Vroegop, all superficial cost-cutting exercises are futile. Because they are on paper, not real structural changes. He understands well that postponed procedures do not constitute cost cutting. He talked about making operations leaner and increase the level of human resources, noting that superficial savings cause more harm than good.
Then he mentioned the Awg 325 million for hospital construction, more than double the budget.
As I said, he is straight to the point, and outspoken, unafraid to voice an unpopular view, and he was continuously beaming amicably at Tito, as they spoke.
With one disturbing oddity, that did not surface during the interview.
I know from alternative sources that the HOH director is against vaccination compulsion, that goes against what he calls physical integrity. He is pro vaccinating risk group, but says vaccinating healthy people is a dubious practice, which goes against the expressed policy of the Aruba Department of Public Health and the Aruba government policy.
It’s just unfortunate that HOH subject to so much disagreement, and suffering from lack of consensus, also had to deal with a form of vaccine resistance, in top leadership.
