Aruba Focuses on Improving Its

Health Care System

Aruba is a Caribbean island located 15 miles north of the coast of Venezuela. Aruba is one of the four constituent countries which form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, besides the Netherlands, Curaçao and Saint Maarten. Anyone who comes here is impressed by the warm waters, white sand beaches and turquoise seas.

Medical care is generally considered to be good in Aruba, but medical standards at the only hospital here, Dr. H.E. Oduber Hospital, can be compared to a small hospital in the U.S.  Unfortunately, for more complicated situations Arubans will have to travel to other countries to seek medical care. 

Health Care in Aruba

As Aruba still has a lot of work to do in the health care sector, patients here have begun choosing other countries such as Colombia, US, Venezuela or Costa Rica for quality, but at the same time cheap medical treatments. Although the health care sector in Aruba has made progress over the past years, there is still a lot of work to be done to be the first choice for its inhabitants when it comes to treatments for complex cases.

Factual data about Aruba:

• Population - 107,484 inhabitants in 2010
• Urban population - 48,085 in 2010
• Survival to age 65, female (% of cohort) - value 87,5 in 2012
• Survival to age 65, male (% of cohort) - value 79,2 in 2012
• Causes of death - diseases of circulatory system 33%, Neoplasms 25%
• In 2010, 31.8% of the population was suffering from at least one chronic health condition (allergy, cardiovascular condition, chronic back problems)
• Between 2007-2010 skin cancer was the number one diagnosed cancer in Aruba (611 new diagnosed cases)

Source: factfish.com

If Aruba will take the necessary steps towards improving its medical system to reach international standards it would be able to keep its patients who seek medical care in other countries. Until then people from Aruba are traveling abroad for high complexity cases due to lack of local infrastructure, technology and expertise to handle these cases. 

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