Treatments have been postponed for hundreds of patients who depend on care from the Martini Hospital in Groningen. Caren Niemeijer (40) from Smilde is one of them. After being on the waiting list for eight weeks, the knee operation that was supposed to take place this fall has been moved to 2024. “Patients who are only waiting for a date are now suffering from this.”
The postponed treatments are due to a dispute between the Martini Hospital and health insurers asr and Zilveren Kruis. The amount of care that the two insurers have purchased from the Martini Hospital for this year has run out. RTV Noord wrote this earlier. The parties have been discussing a solution since August, but were unable to reach an agreement.
Zilveren Kruis informed RTV Noord that the agreements between hospitals and health insurers will be made at the end of a year. “The Martini Hospital did not expect to reach an agreement with the agreed amount and wanted extra money and then you enter into discussions,” says the spokesperson.
“Zilveren Kruis has made two million euros available, but the hospital wanted one million euros more. We see that the waiting times in surrounding hospitals are shorter. For a knee operation you have a waiting time of ten weeks at the Martini Hospital, but at other hospitals in In the region it will be your turn in three and a half weeks. That is why we are giving the Martini Hospital money for other forms of care, but we do not want to increase the premium unnecessarily.”
One of those patients is Caren Niemeijer from Smilde. She is insured with De Friesland (part of Zilveren Kruis). Since the beginning of this year she has been in a treatment program at the Martini Hospital for osteoarthritis. After several scans, it turned out that the pain in her knee could be reduced by knee surgery. That operation should give her some of her old life back. “I hope that the pain complaints will decrease. That I will no longer lose sleep over it and that I can do work again. That I can actually do what is normal for someone of my age.”
At the beginning of August she was told that she would be put on the waiting list. We had to wait another four months before the operation would take place. But the problems between the Martini Hospital and its insurance company De Friesland throw a spanner in the works. “I heard through the media that my operation will be moved to the course of 2024. I have now received a letter from the hospital, but I have not yet heard anything from my health insurer. So I contacted them myself to ask what my options were. are.”
Niemeijer was advised to go to another hospital, she says. But she herself doesn’t like that. “I have been here for a long time. I consciously chose this hospital. The hospital has a good reputation and my family also has good experiences with the hospital.”
Moreover, switching to another hospital would result in ‘double work’, says Niemeijer. “Then another doctor has to check whether the diagnosis and the operation are correct. The costs that this entails then also end up with the health insurance,” she reasons. “And I have already contacted hospitals in the area. I would then have to join the existing queue.”
Niemeijer understands that it is a complex problem. “I understand that the hospital also has to be paid. But I think that the treatments for people who are already on the waiting list should continue. I have already been completely diagnosed and have been in that mill since January 31. Patients who only have to go on a date wait, are now becoming victims of this.”
Moreover, she is upset that she pays her monthly health insurance premium, but is now unable to access the care she needs. “What is happening here is simply unacceptable. They must come up with a very good premium and very clear conditions for the next year, so that this cannot happen again. I don’t want to experience this again.”
Apart from the longer duration of her pain complaints, she fears that the damage in her knee will worsen. It is currently unknown whether this is the case. According to Niemeijer, communication about the problems could have saved a large part of her current worries. “Discussions about this already took place in August. Then I was placed on the waiting list. Now I have been on the waiting list for Piet snot for eight weeks.”