Erwin from Tilburg is 58 and had a cerebral infarction last year. He has been incontinent ever since, has difficulty speaking and can barely walk. After his release from the hospital, he immediately sought help. Because his partner Yvonne, who also has problems of his own, cannot take care of him. Now almost a year later, the right help has still not been found and the situation at home is unsustainable.
The fact that Erwin and his partner can’t make it together is clearly visible at their house, in the center of Tilburg. It hasn’t been cleaned in months. The floor is full of rubbish. It is almost unlivable. According to Yvonne, Erwin has minimal help from home care with washing. Hygiene is bad, he barely has any teeth in his mouth.
Last night Erwin knocked on the door of neighbor Marcel Horck again. It was the second time he sought help there. Yvonne
had become aggressive again out of sheer powerlessness. It is clear that she cannot handle the situation. Yvonne: “It doesn’t work here anymore. I have a bathroom with toilet upstairs. He has difficulty walking. He keeps going up the stairs. And then he usually doesn’t make it. He lets it run like this.”
“It’s a big mess and at one point everyone was pointing at each other.”
Yvonne is up. Her relationship with Erwin was already bad when he suffered a cerebral infarction last year. They were actually going to break up. After admission to the hospital, there was no rehabilitation process for Erwin and home care was also minimal. There was certainly no place in a care institution. It grew over Yvonne, who has autism herself.
She had to do it all by herself: “It’s a big mess and at one point everyone was pointing at each other,” says Yvonne emotionally. “Everyone agrees that we need 24-hour care. But nothing happens, so it all falls on my shoulders.”
“I took him to the hospital in his wheelchair.”
Neighbor Marcel Horck has been worried about the two for months, but he cannot accommodate Erwin. When he was back on the doorstep last night because it wasn’t safe at home, Horck took him to the hospital in his wheelchair: “When I said: ‘I’ve come to bring you this gentleman.’ I received the answer: ‘That’s not what we’re here for’. ‘But I don’t either,’ I said then.”
Horck has been sounding the alarm at all kinds of authorities since September. Without result: “The community police officer told me that this work takes up 80 percent of his time. All aid agencies have already been involved with the two, but no one takes responsibility. I find it shocking that this is possible in the Netherlands. I understand that seeking help takes a while, but a year?”
Erwin himself also really wants to leave home. With difficulty he can tell what he thinks of the whole situation: “It is no longer possible. I get a lot of help, but not the good one. I want peace.”
“He almost killed himself.”
According to Horck, the situation is also downright dangerous because there has already been a fire in the building once. And Yvonne also sees that danger: “Police, ambulance, fire brigade. It’s all been here. Erwin set it on fire once above. He almost killed himself. I’m terrified he’ll do something like that again.”
Marcel Horck hopes that the authorities will finally intervene, now that the sad story has become known to a large audience: “They all point at each other, but someone really has to do something now”.
One of the agencies that recently started providing outpatient care at Erwin says it cannot respond for privacy reasons. They do want to say that Erwin is registered in various places, but that a number of healthcare institutions have rejected him because of the complicated problems.
The municipality of Tilburg says in a response that with the best intentions, all authorities have worked at cross purposes. “We will investigate what is needed to find a solution and we also hope to learn from it so that it does not occur again,” said a spokesperson for the BenW council in Tilburg.
* Yvonne’s real name is known to the editors.
ttn-32