The Groningen hospital has trouble getting the occupation around, especially in the summer due to the departure of a pediatric surgeon. At that time, the situation is so dire that the inspection decides to keep the finger on the pulse.
After that visit, the hospital must share the gratings with the inspection every month. The inspection also demands that the hospital clearly determines when the limit has been reached and operations can no longer take place safely. There must be a plan for that moment, so that patients can be properly transferred to another center.
What also plays a role are reports of the departing surgeon about the social safety and quality of care and science. Among other things, she has expressed her doubts about whether the children’s heart center is reporting incidents and calamities correctly. The reports of her and another employee are now reason for the UMCG to stop planable operations for the time being.
For the time being, the hospital only does acute and outpatient care at the Kinderhartcentrum. Anyone who is on the waiting list for surgery must either be postponed to one of the other children’s heart centers or the operation. It is often about newborn babies. In the meantime, there will be an external investigation into the reports of the two employees and any measures follow. The aim is to resume operations on January 1.
According to the UMCG, the occupation problems have been resolved because an experienced (Dutch) surgeon from Cologne now works completely in the UMCG. However, the inspection still has worries. They focus on collaboration in the new team. For example, a foreign surgeon works in Groningen who is not yet powerful. That could be difficult in the operating room. The inspection insists on extra attention for cooperation.
The inspection visited all four children’s heart centers in the Netherlands (Amsterdam/Leiden, Utrecht, Rotterdam and Groningen). In recent years, they fought with each other which center could remain open. Politics took a decision twice and in the end the judge put a line through all the plans, so that they are all still open.
That is problematic, because it is not only difficult in Groningen to attract enough medical specialists and specialized nurses. The inspection fears that the pressure on the care providers involved will become too great, so that the quality and safety of care can be at stake.
For decades, everyone has agreed that four children’s heart centers are too much for the Netherlands, also because these types of operations in patients with a congenital heart defect is relatively rare.
The inspection rules that in the meantime little ends up from agreements made about improving the quality of care. The boards of the hospitals in particular do too little about this. The fact that the hospitals do not register the operations in the same way does not help to compare and improve the quality of care.
At the end of this year, all hospitals, including the UMCG, will be visited again from the Healthcare and Youth Inspectorate.
The UMCG has responded in writing to the website of the Inspectorate. In it, the hospital states that the results of the research into social safety and the quality of care and science are expected in the coming weeks. Until that time, the operations are stopped, because they only have to take place under the best possible circumstances and they are not there, as long as the reports have not been investigated.
Furthermore, the UMCG states that the quality figures and the treatment results still show a high level of care. The inspection states that they are not clear enough about these figures, because each hospital has its own way of registering. That is why it cannot be concluded on the basis of that data how the quality of care or survival after surgical interventions at the heart of the UMCG relates to the other centers in the Netherlands or Europe. “