Horacio Oduber Hospital (HOH) is a medium-sized general hospital in Aruba.
The hospital building is located northwest of the capital city of Oranjestad where the Arend Petroleum Company at Eagle was formerly located. Named after physician Horacio Oduber, the 187-bed hospital was put into use in late 1976. On March 5, 1977, the official opening took place in the presence of Dutch minister De Gaay Fortman.[1] In September 2014, the start of the hospital's expansion and renovation project began, one of the largest construction projects in Aruban history. Including a new bed house, a three times larger emergency room, a new outpatient clinic for specialists and the remodeling of the building. This enhances patient privacy and services in a modern environment. The final phase of this project will resume at the end of the year 2023 after a dispute by parties caused construction to be halted in 2022.
The Horacio Oduber Hospital is part of the Dutch Caribbean Hospital Alliance (DCHA) together with other hospitals in the Caribbean that are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.[2] Alliances and collaborations include the country laboratory of Curaçao (ADC), streeklab Haarlem, the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), Erasmus Medical Center (EMC), Radboud University, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), Maastricht University, Xavier University, Thomas Moore in Belgium and partner hospitals in Colombia.
You can read more about the hospital, year 2023, in Aruba in the 2nd edition brochure called NOS SEMPER T'EY.
Vision, Vision, Values and Principles
Since 2023, Horacio Oduber Hospital's vision, values and principles have been revised and updated.
MISSION:
To always create a result and feeling that exceeds our customer’s expectations. All of this is provided by our passionate and respected team in an excellent clinic environment with the best treatment results.
VISION:
Improving the quality of Aruba’s healthcare for our people and for the region.
Brochure Horacio Oduber Hospital 2023: NOS SEMPER T'EY!
HOH Values- TRUSTED:
T = Always be a Team player
R = Always be Responsive and Respectful towards patients and colleagues
U = Always be Understanding
S = Always makes the other person feel Safe
T = You are Talented
E = You Execute
D = You are Dedicated
FOUNDATIONS:
Hospitality first: We are mindful of the personal needs of our patients and employees.
Quality: We deliver high quality health care by following professional guidelines and continuously improving processes.
Financial Sustainability: We purposefully use resources and create opportunities to invest and grow.
Continuous Learning: We keep learning as an organization and encourage our employees to develop themselves both personally and professionally.
Current partners of the HOH
History
Horacio Eulogio Oduber (1862-1935) was the first Aruban physician and had a home practice in Wilhelminastraat.[3] The doctor was often paid only in kind or given fodder for his horse. Many people died from infections, viruses or diseases not known at that time. According to estimates, about 8,000 people lived on the island in 1910. They were mostly farm workers with few financial resources. Since there was no hospital at that time, doctors took patients into their homes,[3] and necessary operations, including amputations, were performed only by administering lots of rum due to the lack of anesthetics.
At the turn of the century, the population increased rapidly and Horacio Oduber's infirmary also became too small. To alleviate the need, hospices arose, including at Madiki and on Oude Schoolstraat, and a small military hospital was established at Fort Zoutman.[4][5]
In 1904, a committee began to raise money for the establishment of a hospital on Aruba.[6] With the help of regional and local actions, the capital needed for this was raised by the Diocese of Willemstad.[7] On the initiative of Bishop Vuylsteke, the country house of plantation Sividivi, near Oranjestad, was purchased and, after temporary use as a nunnery, was converted into a hospital.[8] The actual first Aruban hospital, San Pedro de Verona, was opened in 1920 by the Dominican Sisters. Expansion of facilities to 200 beds and renovations in 1927, 1936 and 1953 followed, but always proved inadequate for the growing population. In 1971, thanks to funding from the Netherlands,[9] construction of a new hospital began. Since 1977, the former hospital complex has been used as a nursing home.
After two oil refineries settled in Aruba in the 1920s, they proceeded to set up their own health care. Arend Petroleum company doctor, Adriaan Dussenbroek (1893-1965), had a small practice in Quinta del Carmen, his private residence in Bubali. In 1929, a small hospital was set up for company personnel behind his home, which was in use until 1943.[10] Between 1929 and 1972, the Lago oil refinery at Seroe Colorado operated a second 120-bed general hospital,[9] which catered to its own employees and their family members, seamen from oil tankers and privately insured citizens. When the oil refineries closed, the hospital complexes were completely demolished; for Eagle in 1953 and Lago in 1985.
Doctor's home of Horacio Oduber on Wilhelminastraat opposite the Protestant church (1907)
Country house Sividivi, equipped with a large cistern with pressure pump and its own water pipe, was converted into a hospital
Entrance to San Pedro de Verona
Former doctor's residence Quinta del Carmen
Entrance to Lago hospital
Healthcare and departments
Horacio Oduber Hospital currently (2023) has a capacity of 187 beds. In 2020, during the corona crisis, the number of beds in the intensive care unit was scaled up from 6 to 33. Of these, 12 beds were donated by the Netherlands.[11] Reliant on hospital care are the approximately 120,000 residents of Aruba, patients sent from neighboring islands and the 15,000 tourists who stay on the island on average each day. More than 10,000 patients were admitted in 2017 and the emergency room sees between 35,000 and 40,000 patients annually. An average of 900 referrals for specialty care take place annually from the Caribbean Netherlands.[12] Management of the hospital is in the hands of the Stichting Ziekenverpleging Aruba (SZA), which leases the complex from the Stichting Onroerend Goed Aruba (SOGA).[13]
A major expansion and renovation project was launched in 2014, consisting of expanding the hospital with two new towers and renovating and modernizing the existing buildings. The new 3-story medical-administrative center was completed in 2016, and in 2017 the new 6-story bed tower with a pediatric ward, an emergency room and a maternity & obstetrics department [14] was completed.
The hospital has more than 20 different specialties and about 1,300 employees. Specialty physicians are contracted by the HOH or work independently (privately and independently). The staff is very diverse, consisting of people from Aruba and the Caribbean region as well as from European and South American countries. The diversity makes it so that work is performed in a multilingual environment such as the local language Papiamento but also Spanish and English in addition to the working language of Dutch. This is also useful for tourism, the island’s main economic pillar.
Medical staff
The medical facilities available at the hospital include family medicine, general surgery, internal medicine, neurology, neuro-surgery, orthopedic surgery, pediatrics, gynecology, cardiology, interventional cardiology, nephrology, gastro-enterology, anesthesiology, ophthalmology, bariatric surgery, otolaryngology, psychiatry, oncology, pathology, intensive care medicine, plastic surgery, dermatology, obstetrics, pulmonology, radiology and urology.[15]
Specialized physicians are either contracted by HOH or work privately as independent consultants.
Aruba does not offer any undergraduate medical training. All physicians at HOH are graduates of medical schools in Europe (mainly the Netherlands) or Latin America. However HOH collaborates with Dutch universities and university medical centers for short-term placements of medical students and resident physicians, as well as the post-graduate training of family physicians.[20]
Nurses are from selected Dutch universities of applied sciences and a locally established vocational nursing school.[16][17] Post-graduate nursing training including the Dutch specialist diploma programs in Intensive Care nursing or Emergency Care Nursing are organized periodically in collaboration with Dutch university hospitals.
The nursing and paramedical staff at HOH include individuals from Europe, Latin America and Central America, which creates a unique multi-lingual environment. Patients and staff communicate in Dutch, English, Spanish and Papiamento. The official language of documentation is Dutch and English.
Rehabilitation center, physical therapy unit, obstetrical unit, walk-in clinic, emergency department, out-patient clinic, wound care center, diabetes center, pain clinic, oncology day-care unit, surgical theater (5 operating rooms), blood bank, Cath lab, post-anesthesia unit.[18]
Admission departments
Psychiatric unit, intensive care unit, medium care unit, coronary care unit, short-stay center, medical wards, surgical wards, isolation nursing units, multiple specialty wards, maternity ward, pediatric ward, basic neonatological care.
Referral of care and inter-hospital agreements
HOH, through the public health insurance agency AZV, has agreements with selected tertiary referral hospitals in Colombia and sends out several patients a year for specialized treatment to nearby cities like Bucaramanga, Medellin, Cali and Barranquilla.[19] Common referrals are related to intervention-cardiology, thoracic surgery, cardiovascular surgery, complex neurosurgery, neonatology intensive care, high risk obstetrics and perinatology, some cases of oncology, complex trauma surgery and reconstructive surgery and treatment that can only be given in a burn center. HOH frequently receives many tourists and cruise ship passengers as patient, as well patients from smaller hospitals from Caribbean Netherlands, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, as particularly intensive care beds and neonatology incubators are limited.
Recent developments
A recently renovated wing houses a combined intensive care, medium care and coronary car unit, which has a flexible capacity of 12 beds.[20][21]
There are existing plans to renovate the main building and expand the hospital with a three-story wing, which will house all services related to mother and child care and a new out-patient clinic.[22]
A large expansion and renovation project started in September 2014 and was due to finish in 2019, but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The project included a new emergency department, an expansion of the operating theaters and the post anesthesia unit and the construction of a new hybrid cardiac catheterization laboratory.[23] A six-story tower was built to house the ICU, Maturnity, Pediatrics and Cardio patient rooms.[24] The 10000 square meters of new space will house a new outpatient clinic, three hospitalization wards of thirty patient rooms each, and a new 'mother and child center' that will house the delivery suits, the pediatrics ward and the maternity ward. The old building will be renovated.[25][needs update]
On 13 April 2020, the hospital announced that the original ICU capacity of 6 beds had been significantly increased as a result of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Aruba. The hospital had already increased its capacity to 21, and after a shipment of emergency aid [26] now has a total of 33 ICU beds.[27]
Accidents
On 16 June 2020, an explosion and subsequent structure fire was reported in one of the new buildings of HOH. The incident triggered a large-scale emergency response, including the evacuation of patients and the deployment of 20 Dutch Marines from the 32 Raiding Squadron. [21][22]
