He sees symptoms that are not so common in the Netherlands. Doctor Frank van Kemenade receives many migrant workers who arrive late to the doctor. They often do not have good access to health care. That is why Van Kemenade is now part of a special practice set up for migrant workers. A third of his 6500 patients come from Brabant, but they have to go all the way to Venlo for a consultation.
Pjotr is an order picker from Tilburg. His employer brought him all the way to the practice in Venlo. A good employer, unfortunately, that is not always the case with migrant workers. The Polish Pyotr has back problems. It was not possible to find a general practitioner in Tilburg. “I had nowhere to go,” says Pjotr with the help of an interpreter. “But maybe I didn’t call the right numbers.”
The distance is not a problem for Pjotr. “If I don’t have problems with my back, that ride is doable.” According to doctor Van Kemenade, migrant workers often even drive back to their home country. “Then they get into their car with pneumonia and drive back and forth to Poland at the weekend. Because they can’t go here. It’s ridiculous.”
The practice of Frank van Kemenade, Healthcare for Internationals Limburg, can assist migrant workers in their own language. Polish, Romanian and Ukrainian are spoken, among others. The practice has set up a special helpline for Ukrainian refugees. The doctor’s assistant is on the phone next to the interpreter, because not every interpreter has a medical background. “They are two completely different professions.”
Pjotr is very pleased that he can now simply speak Polish. “I think this is a very smart idea. I do speak a little Dutch, but those dialects make it difficult.” Van Kemenade believes that there should be more practices in the Netherlands that specialize in migrants. “Now they are often turned away a bit when they are looking for a GP. People often come to the office in between and they can’t communicate with each other.”
Recent research by expertise center Pharos shows that Dutch healthcare is poorly accessible for migrant workers. They often run a greater risk of health problems due to poor living and working conditions, the researchers say. They also do not dare to call in sick, for fear of losing their job.
And that has serious consequences. Many migrant workers continue to walk around with complaints for too long and arrive too late at Van Kemenade. “People with a broken vertebra who have been walking around for too long. Or tumors that are much larger. I recently had someone with a tumor on his tongue. He was half eaten away by the cancer. You don’t see this often in the Netherlands.”
The practice has now been open for nine months. With 6500 patients, the practice is much larger than regular GP practices. And that also has to be done financially. “We have young people here, no children, no elderly, no people with chronic illness, so our practice is very different. With 6500 patients we are just breaking even but we could help many more.”
Setting up a practice especially for migrant workers is not so easy. “The GPs are already working up to their ears. We are now trying to make GPs our partners. So that patients who live a bit further away can go to a GP, who can do the consultations with the help of our interpreters.”