While Maasstad Regie Centrale (MRC) still received congratulatory donuts from Amstelveen last year, the mood of the municipality towards the WMO carrier is now less cheerful. She fined MRC 2,000 euros for every month that the company does not have things in order.
MRC will be responsible for WMO transport from 1 January this year. Since then, complaints have been pouring in to the municipality, Alderman for Care and WMO Marijn van Ballegooijen confirmed earlier. According to him, most complaints are about the long waiting times.
“I can’t be anywhere on time anymore and I’m busy with that taxi all day”
Patients in need of care are the victims. Two of them told their story to NH Nieuws. Lonneke Bikker (58) has had breast cancer and is struggling with an energy problem. That is why she regularly uses the WMO taxi. Her 86-year-old mother is also often dependent on the taxi.
It is a source of stress for Lonneke, especially when a doctor’s appointment is scheduled. “I had to go to the eye clinic with my mother”, Lonneke gives an example. “The moment we were to be picked up, they called that they would come an hour to 45 minutes later. That no longer makes sense, because that appointment is already over. When I got angry on the phone, there was suddenly a quarter of an hour a private taxi.” Other times the wait was one and a half to two hours.
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WMO taxi makes clients wait for hours – NH Nieuws
Sabine (46), with a connective tissue disorder, can talk about it: “I can’t be anywhere on time and am busy all day with that taxi.” Sabine also sometimes has to wait 1.5 hours and has already canceled a care appointment.
Alderman for Healthcare Marijn van Ballegooijen demanded improvement of the company in April. MRC then came up with a plan. “They will deploy more drivers, train customer service and there will be a new manager,” the alderman summed up at the time.
still too late
MRC, which attributes the problems to a shortage of drivers due to two corona years, went through the dust at the time. “Yes, we recognize the complaints about transport that currently also does not have the service level that we want to provide ourselves,” they said at the time. “We are very sorry about that, because we believe that we are certainly able to deliver that quality based on our many years of experience.”
Van Ballegooijen gave the company thirty days to show that they can indeed do better. “We see an improvement in the service,” said the alderman about the evaluation. “But we are still receiving complaints that the WMO carrier is not on time for appointments. This is not desirable, for example, if they have to transport residents with dementia. The service is not yet at the level of the contract agreements made.”
The municipality does see an improvement in the accessibility of customer service, an improved app and the number of complaints is decreasing. If MRC cannot get the drivers to the clients on time in the short term, legal action will follow.
‘Found way up’
Sabine has indeed noticed that things have improved a bit lately, but she still cannot rely on the taxi being on time and was late again for a care appointment. Lonneke is still experiencing many problems due to stressed drivers who have to pick up too many clients at once. She regularly submits complaints to the municipality.
MRC itself says it is doing everything it can to get its affairs in order. “The improvements lead to an optimistic management team,” the company said in a response. “We also regularly receive comments from customers that things are now going well. Something will always go wrong, but the way up has been found. We sincerely hope that soon all our customers will be satisfied. We don’t just hope that But we’re working really hard on that.”