WILLEMSTAD - Last year, the Social Insurance Bank (SVB) spent 26.7 million guilders on medical costs for patients who had to be sent abroad for treatment. This amount is 2.6 million more than in 2022, as stated in the SVB's 2023 annual report.
The total cost associated with these foreign treatments nearly reached 27 million guilders, up from 24 million in 2022. These treatments are carried out at the request of a medical specialist and are necessary when the treatment is not possible in Curaçao and when receiving treatment abroad is significantly more beneficial for the patient's health.
In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were over 1,100 treatments conducted abroad. This number dropped by nearly 50 percent, to almost six hundred, from 2020 to 2022. Other requests for treatment abroad were related to acute conditions while abroad (63), hiring of specialists (39), emigration due to illness (7), and dialysis during vacation (10).