The Klazienaveen first aid department sounds the alarm. Events and festivals may be canceled next season because there are too few volunteers and organizations are often too late to schedule.
Volunteers prepare the Drentse Wandelvierdaagse at a sports park in Odoorn. The event was canceled last year due to corona and the volunteers have to come in for a while. In addition, there are also fewer volunteers this year, so they start a week earlier. “That means that you have to do the same amount of work, but with fewer people. So you spread it out over time,” explains chairman Andries de Vries.
Also in terms of first aid personnel, the four-day walking tour has to make do with fewer people. Normally there are two first aid volunteers at each stamp post, but because many first aiders have stopped and some first aid associations no longer run events, they now have to make do with half the normal number. There are now four first aiders spread over the entire course.
The volunteers of the emergency room now mainly come from the Klazienaveen first aid department. But that department doesn’t have enough for a normal occupancy. “It is the middle of the week and it is the Ascension weekend in which there are already many activities. One and one is really five”, Fenny Dekker of the Klazienaveen First Aid Department explains the precarious situation.
Watch our report on a lack of volunteers at the first aid (story continues below the video):