All set for ADC lab
transfer this Friday
~ SLS will become operational September 1 ~
PHILIPSBURG--After years of discussions, meetings and in some cases controversy, the much-anticipated transfer of the Analytic Diagnostic Centre (ADC) lab to St. Maarten Laboratory Services (SLS) is scheduled to take place this Friday.
The assets, personnel and authority of the lab, located in the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) building, will be transferred to SLS, an entity established under former health commissioner Franklin Meyers.
However, although the official signing will take place on Friday, SLS will only start functioning independently from September 1, Health Commissioner Maria Buncamper-Molanus told reporters during Wednesday’s Executive Council press briefing. From this date, she said, ADC will also cease to exist.
Buncamper-Molanus said she had received almost all the necessary documentation needed to facilitate the transfer this Friday. Up to yesterday, Wednesday, the Commissioner said she hadn’t yet received the lab’s audited financial statement for 2007 and an inventory of equipment at the lab. However, she said these items were not needed at the moment.
State Secretary for Health Joan Smart-Berkel and a Central Government delegation are among those expected to be present at the signing ceremony.
The Commissioner had said earlier that several persons in the medical, judicial and financial fields had been identified to sit on the SLS Supervisory Board of Directors and if all went well the members should be appointed soon. The profiles of the prospective board members have to be compiled.
The Commissioner had also said service agreements would be made during the initial stages for the lab in Curaçao to continue providing certain lab services to SLS, including clinical chemistry, microbiology and other tests and services.
She and Smart-Berkel met recently to discuss the transfer, but there were conflicting reports on whether the meeting had ended prematurely.
The process to transfer the lab began in 1996, but hit several snags over the years.
