General practitioner organizations will hold a manifestation on 1 July at the Malieveld in The Hague to protest against the many extra tasks that the doctors are assigned to. According to the National Association of General Practitioners (LHV), the limit of what general practitioner care can handle has been reached. “General practitioners cannot continue to close the gaps in other sectors. The pressure is now so high that some GPs say: ‘I’m stopping it’. That is very worrying,” says a spokesperson for the LHV.
With the campaign, the general practitioners are mainly targeting Minister Ernst Kuipers (Healthcare). They want concrete agreements to be made in the care agreements so that “actual changes will take place” in the coming years. According to the LHV, many of the agreements made earlier to relieve the burden on general practitioner care have so far failed to materialize. The organization announced the action on ‘International Day of the General Practitioner’.
GPs have been given extra tasks in recent years, partly because of the waiting lists at hospitals and mental health care. “In the meantime that a patient cannot go to mental health care, he will stay with the GP,” explains the spokesperson. In addition, doctors from the government and health insurers have to deal with all kinds of extra administrative tasks.
aging
The aging population also plays a role. “Government policy is that everyone should continue to live at home as much as possible. But the only care provider left in the neighborhood with its own place is the GP,” said the spokesman. In addition, he says, older people have more and more serious complaints.
According to the LHV, whether general practitioners should continue to administer corona vaccinations is still being discussed in the professional group. “In principle” it is not a core task of the GP. Some doctors feel it is their social duty to do it. Others don’t like it. “They say: ‘I wouldn’t know how and when I would have to organize all this’. That is especially important how it went in recent times. With the AstraZeneca vaccine, it was running, stopping, continuing again. People came with questions , it was all very hectic, which cost a lot of energy and time for GPs.”