Finally, Q fever patients feel taken seriously by the national government. On Wednesday, a minister spoke to patients for the first time in the provincial government building in Den Bosch.
Brabant is the region where many people are affected by Q fever, a disease that is mainly transmitted by sheep and goats. The first epidemic was in 2007, reports the RIVM. Some patients have suffered long-term complaints from the disease, such as fatigue.
‘A terrible amount of pain’
Patients have felt unheard for years. Minister Jan Anthonie Bruijn of Health, Welfare and Sport talked to Q fever patients on Wednesday. This is the first time that a minister has offered a listening ear. “There is an awful lot of pain there. I have been a doctor for forty years and I know how chronic diseases, which are sometimes difficult to recognise, can intervene in all kinds of ways,” Bruijn responds after the conversation.
According to Caroline van Kessel of patient organization Q-uestion, it was high time for such a conversation. She also has complaints of Q fever. “It is the first step in recognition. That you can tell the minister what that has been like for you.”
Epidemic swept under the table
Van Kessel said that during the conversation it was discussed how the epidemic had actually been swept under the table for a long time. “People still experience the pain of that. Also the inequality. That the goat farmers were compensated and that the patients were not taken care of. That is a pain that remains,” she explains in the provincial government building.
King’s Commissioner Ina Adema also thinks it is time for recognition. “It would of course have been best if we never had to have this conversation. Everything had already been organized many years ago, but that is not the case.”
Expertise center in Brabant
The timing is special. This week, the province announced its intention to contribute financially to an expertise center in Brabant where people with long-term complaints of Q fever and post-covid can go. The province does this because the government only wants to support university hospitals outside Brabant. That is why patients still travel to hospitals in Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Maastricht to be helped there.
The province wants to help pay for a treatment center in Brabant, which will probably be located in the Bernhoven hospital in Uden. The costs for this are probably in the millions.
While the province has been fighting the disease for some time, the situation is different for the national government. National support has so far been lacking. Van Kessel hopes that the minister’s visit will bring about change in this dossier.
“This is the ninth minister we have encountered. The first to visit us. That could mean a change. But we have to move on a bit,” she concludes hopefully.