Johan Kuiper (81) had to go to the hospital for his eye. Just before noon, he drove his mobility scooter onto the boat that sails from Oost-Vlieland, the only village on the Wadden Island, to Harlingen. The crossing takes an hour and a half. From the port on the mainland he continued, three kilometers to the Frisius MC. He left the outpatient clinic again at three o’clock, but the boat to Vlieland only leaves at ten to seven in the evening. “It was stone cold. And a Monday. Everything was closed.” Johan drank coffee for hours in the terminal of Rederij Doeksen. He was home at nine o’clock in the evening.
He never wants to leave Vlieland again. Johan has lived on the island with his wife Ria Kuiper (80) for almost half a century. Their sons also live on the island and work for the shipping company. Johan and Ria are natives of Zeeland, “but we don’t know anyone in Zeeland anymore,” he says. He did “all kinds of things” on Vlieland. Planted marram grass, was a bus and taxi driver, worked as a subcontractor.
At 58 Johan was rejected. Cerebral infarction. “Luckily I recovered well.” Ria has dementia and is entitled to one of the seven internal care places on the island, in the De Ton residential care center. But yes, there was only room for her and they wanted to stay together – she and their dog Hidde, a Frisian Stabyhoun.
To their great luck, a house became available in March last year in the Boswijk, a neighborhood for the elderly that was built in 2022. Now they have a house without thresholds, with underfloor heating, ventilation, a high-low bed, shower chair and a care provider visiting them a few times a day.
Johan and Ria Kuiper live in a care home.
Photo Kees van de Veen
More job opportunities ‘on shore’
A growing demand for help, staff shortages in healthcare, overburdened informal caregivers: on the Wadden Islands the problems of an aging society are even more apparent than on the mainland. This is evident from the research report published this Tuesday Growing older together on the Wadden Islands from the knowledge institute Planning Bureau Fryslân in consultation with the five Wadden municipalities and the University of Groningen. The share of people over 65 from Texel to Schiermonnikoog is larger than on the mainland. The proportion of young people is actually smaller. They have a much better chance of getting a job on ‘shore’, as the mainland is called on the Wadden.
There is also a “gigantic” lack of suitable houses, says researcher Jesse David Marinus (29), affiliated with Planning Bureau Fryslân and the University of Groningen. “On most islands you are on the waiting list for social housing for seven to eight years.” Houses for sale are scarce and expensive, and there is hardly any private rental.
I take care of ten elderly people on my own
The housing problem makes it difficult to attract healthcare staff, while the islands are already struggling with extremely tight margins. Terschelling (approx. 4,900 inhabitants): two district nurses. Schiermonnikoog (approx. 970 inhabitants): one district nurse and one physiotherapist. Vlieland (1,200 inhabitants): no psychologist, not even consultation hours for a psychologist or mental health practice assistant traveling by boat.
For the hospital you have to go ashore: if you are lucky, you can go to the outpatient clinic in Harlingen. You usually have to travel thirty kilometers to the main location of the Frisius MC in Leeuwarden.
‘The island feels like family’
“Hello!” it sounds cheerful in Johan and Ria’s hallway. “Ah,” he says, “the care” – for Ria. “How are things here?” says the woman as she enters the living room in her white uniform, “okay?” Her name is Maja Westerman (65) and she lives in Harlingen. The boat to Vlieland sails three times a day in winter: “I work here for four days, then at home for two days and then here again for three days.”
Westerman sleeps in a “staff house” of her employer, the Frisian elderly care institution Kwadrant, a half-minute walk from Johan and Ria’s house. “I take care of ten elderly people on my own.” Three in this senior street, seven internally in the De Ton residential care center. “I do everything there. Washing, dressing, giving medicine… Quite busy, you know. Because I also have to go to this lane in the morning. I’m busy for 45 minutes. It’s quiet in De Ton for 45 minutes.”
On the other side of the village, less than a fifteen-minute walk away, live former general practitioners Remmie (70) and Erik Hammers (69). Seven years ago they exchanged the mainland for Vlieland. A return for Remmie: she grew up on the island, her family is from here. That is to say: her grandparents were “immigrants”, she says, “from Terschelling”.
Remmie crossed over to ‘the shore’ for her medical studies and career. It was certain that she would return one day. “The island feels like family to her,” says Erik, who grew up in Twente. “And we had a house here,” says Remmie, “that of course made a difference.”
Their new-build home is on a lot that has been family owned for decades. Her grandparents’ home used to be here. “My parents were able to donate this place to me. That is one of the few ways to live here. Unless you are extremely rich. But even then, there just has to be room.”
Their house is located on the long, straight main street of Vlieland, the old Dorpsstraat with its shops, cafes and houses behind elegant brick facades. A tourist street in the summer, but now the domain of islanders. Their backyard borders the dike. Behind it: the Wadden Sea.
Former general practitioners Remmie (70) and Erik Hammers (69) exchanged the mainland for Vlieland seven years ago.
Photos Kees van de Veen
Leiden, Wassenaar and Wageningen
Here on Vlieland they want to grow old, following in the footsteps of Remmie’s mother – now 96. She recently became one of the seven residents of the De Ton residential care center. “Very nice, that facility,” says Erik, “on Schiermonnikoog you have to go ashore if you need much more care.”
They hope to be able to live in their own home for years to come. They do not have to count on informal care: their three children live with their families within a day’s journey – in Leiden, Wassenaar and Wageningen. The boat trip to Vlieland is also not cheap. A return ticket for a family with two young children costs about 60 euros (Vlielanders themselves receive a discount).
But they are not worried, “people look out for each other here,” says Erik. “When my mother-in-law got older and her neighbors across the street saw that her curtains were closed for a long time, they walked into her house from the back.” And their own network is fine. Not only do many family members and acquaintances still live on the island, but Remmie is also active in the seniors’ association, which organizes coffee mornings, bike rides and games afternoons for the 190 members. Erik has become a member of the client council of healthcare organization Kwadrant.
If they become too infirm to stay in their own house: they have their spare house ready at the rear, a barrier-free studio including a small kitchen and bathroom. Everything on one floor. The plates to which the shower chair can be screwed have already been mounted on the bathroom wall.
Billiards afternoon in the De Vliestroom village hall.
Photo Kees van de Veen
Traveling all day
Ina de Zeeuw (57), Vlieland’s only physiotherapist, practices upstairs in the village hall that was completed in 2022 together with the Boswijk, the neighborhood for seniors. In the hall downstairs, older men play billiards. The funeral committee has its office on the right and the dentist also works here when he comes over from shore once every two weeks.
“If I were to drop out, there would be no easy replacement,” says De Zeeuw. “Then people have to travel a whole day for half an hour of physiotherapy. Just find someone who wants to work on Vlieland. You then also have to accommodate them.”
De Zeeuw lives right next to her workplace and has been a physiotherapist on the island for 32 years. According to her, growing old on Vlieland is not for everyone. “If your health deteriorates and you have to go to the hospital three times a week, it becomes difficult.” The islanders are used to this, says De Zeeuw: “They live with the rhythm of the boat.”
She sometimes sees something different happening with retirees from the mainland. They thought they would enjoy their old age on Vlieland, but she saw several couples leave again. “They wanted to live closer to the children, or to a hospital.”
But growing older on the island is not easy for born and bred Vlielander Tonny Stuivenga (68). She has been forced to live separately from her partner, Hans Veenstra (78), since November. He was already suffering from leg spasms and a spinal cord injury when he fell out of bed at home at night in November. “I heard it pop,” says Tonny. “I say: what are you doing now?” Hans could no longer get up on his own and Tonny couldn’t get him up either. She called “the girls” from De Ton. They lifted Hans up again. “It just didn’t work anymore here at home.” There was room in De Ton: “Someone had just died.”
Tonny Stuivenga (left) regularly visits her husband Hans in the De Ton nursing home.
Photo Kees van de Veen
But yes: Tonny cannot go there. She goes to Hans every day. They want to live together again, like they did for the past four years. “We are having a great time together.” They hope for a senior apartment in the Boswijk, but it is full. Ironically, Tonny and Hans did have the opportunity to move there four years ago. But the rent was too high, Tonny thought.
It’s quiet at home. She misses him most when she has “no purpose”, when she “has to stay” at home in the afternoon. Really, she has plenty of friends she can turn to. “But do I really have to visit all the houses to feel good?” No, she doesn’t want that. She feels the boundaries of this island, she says, “like a stab.”
Could they possibly live together somewhere ‘on shore’? Leaving Vlieland? Not an option, says Tonny. She tried it, in her younger years she lived near The Hague, later in Soesterberg. But she always returned. Vlieland, that’s hers. Her two brothers and sister also live there. “I belong here,” says Tonny. “When I take the boat back from Harlingen, right, and I smell that mudflat… Wonderful. I stand on that deck for an hour.”
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