WILLEMSTAD – Minister Javier Silvania of Public Health has received a stern reprimand from the judge in the case of a midwife. According to the minister, she was not allowed to establish herself freely in Curaçao, but clear and published government policy or a fixed course of action was not in place.
The verdict emphasizes the minister’s careless preparation and insufficient motivation in rejecting the request for free establishment.
Lysanne Dijkstra-Van Heijningen, who established herself on Curaçao from the Netherlands in 2021, wants to practice her profession as a midwife on the island. However, due to a prohibition on the establishment of medical professionals, she needed an exemption from the minister, which was denied based on ‘new policy’ from 2017 that was not specified or published.
The Court has found that the minister did not adequately motivate the rejection and had insufficiently prepared for the application. Referring to unspecified and unpublished policy was insufficient for such a decision. Additionally, there was insufficient evidence that the so-called concentration policy, aimed at centralizing midwifery care at the Maternity Clinic, was consistently applied or even considered a fixed policy of the minister.
The court establishes that the concentration policy in which the Maternity Clinic plays a central role does not come from the minister but from the implementation organization SVB. It is therefore unclear whether the minister also follows this concentration policy.
Furthermore, there is no evidence of a demonstrably consistent application of it in similar situations. The case mentioned by the plaintiff, L. Visser, in which an exemption was granted, even serves as a counter-indication. The minister’s claim that this case is not comparable because Visser’s case involved an emergency was contested by the plaintiff.
According to Lysanne Dijkstra-Van Heijningen, her case also involves an emergency. To support this stance, the plaintiff pointed to a recent study by the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (Nivel). It shows a significant shortage of midwives in Curaçao.
As a result, the Court annulled the contested decision and instructed the minister to decide again on the plaintiff’s request within four weeks, taking into account the considerations in the verdict. The minister must clarify whether and how existing policy is applied and how Dijkstra-Van Heijningen’s situation relates to the guidelines outlined in the National Ordinance Restriction of Establishment of Medical Professionals.
Bron: Curacao Chronicle