The Deputy of Health Saskia Boelema (D66) and King’s Commissioner Ina Adema still think that there must be a special Q fever clinic in Brabant. Almost twenty years after the start of the Q fever outbreak, at least 1500 people in our province still have to deal with, for example, chronic fatigue due to the disease.
As a result of the disease, these patients are unable to travel to one of the academic hospitals elsewhere in the country, where there are special Q fever centers from The Hague. The fact that such a center did not come in Brabant is still standing in the Provinciehuis in Den Bosch. With a strong lobby, the hope was that the money would end up here.
There is also still no cooperation between the university hospitals and the Bernhoven hospital in Uden. According to the Brabant lobby, that was precisely the most suitable location for a special treatment center, because the hospital is in the middle of the area that was the hardest hit by Q fever. “Nowhere else have that many people been struck by the Q fever,” says Boelema. Although the money has since been forgiven, it continues to work for her own ‘own’ Q fever clinic for Brabant. “The problem in our province is still urgent.”
‘Just as bad as allowance affair’
If it is up to the King’s Commissioner Ina Adema, the next coalition agreement should contain a passage about the fate of Q fever patients. “This is in the same category for me as the allowance affair and Groningen, but it doesn’t stand out because the group is less large.”
Adema knows about children who have been sick all their lives due to Q fever and cannot just go to school or play with other children. She also knows about people who had to stop working. “It has an incredible amount of impact. How long do people have to maintain that? Make work and make sure they get perspective.”
“We have to talk to doing,” says Adema, who points to the three reports of the National Ombudsman about Q fever and its aftermath. “That has never happened before.”
Symposium
Adema thinks it is high time that Q fever patients get perspective again. She hopes that during a symposium next Thursday will be well listened to Q fever patients and that attendees will let their stories come in. “And then I want to see who is not being hit by it. Q fever has stopped the lives of patients. Nobody can guarantee that it will be fine again.” Because not all patients are able to come to Den Bosch on Thursday, there is a live stream so that they can be there at a distance.
An inventory from the province showed earlier that there are plans in municipalities to build more than 4300 new houses in the vicinity of companies with goats. Boelema has called on municipalities to take the proximity of goat farms and health risks into account when choosing housing locations. She wants to talk to them. “It is not intended that we will say in fifteen years: we didn’t know that.”