Ambulance team members to get much-needed downtime

CAY HILL — The Ambulance Department of the Ministry VSA and the Dutch Regional Ambulance Organisation (RAV) are teaming up to provide much needed relief to the staff of the Ambulance Department in St. Maarten.

Following the devastation of hurricanes Irma and Maria, Minister Lee made a request to the Department of Foreign Affairs (BZK) in Den Haag to provide the ambulance personnel in St. Maarten with much needed relief.

“We’ve recently received the final approval from BZK on our request as part of the three and a half year cooperation agreement with our counterparts from the Regional Ambulance Organization (RAV) from Brabant Middle-West-North Holland.”, stated Department Head Ambulance Cylred Richardson in a press release issued by the Ministry of VSA.

According to the press release, there is much content with the input from RAV and BZK and with their decision to have ambulance team members from the Netherlands working as relief teams on St. Maarten. The teams will work alongside our hard working ambulance professionals from Sunday October 22 to November 7, 2017. This would allow our team members some much-needed downtime, as they have been working non-stop since the hurricanes affected the island, the press release stated.

The release continues to state that the Ambulance Department teams have executed their tasks exceptionally well both pre, during, and post hurricane Irma and Maria despite having to deal their own personal loses. Their efforts are to be highly commended by the entire population to which professional ambulance care that was provided 24/7 during and after the disasters.

The press release concludes with the statement that Minister Lee says that he is proud of the work that the ambulance staff has done, especially of their response in times of crisis.