Kuipers calls discussion about pediatric heart surgery ‘harmful’

Health Minister Ernst Kuipers calls on doctors involved in the discussion about the closure of three hospital locations for complex pediatric heart surgery to stop “blaming each other. That does not help, it is harmful, it is not useful.”

The minister responded to questions about a petition that will be presented to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, asking to continue performing complex pediatric heart operations in Groningen. The university medical center there is one of three hospitals that will eventually have to stop these operations.

In addition to Groningen, the academic hospitals in Leiden and Amsterdam must eventually stop complex pediatric heart surgery. They also call the decision “unfair” and a step backwards for their patients. A group of pediatric heart surgeons who work in the two hospitals in Rotterdam and Utrecht that are allowed to continue performing the operation defend the decision. The doctors say that concentrating complex care is actually good for patients’ chances of survival.

damaging

Former health minister Hugo de Jonge decided to close the three children’s heart centers. Kuipers confirmed that decision. He points out that the discussion about the concentration of pediatric heart surgery has been going on for decades. He hopes that the doctors involved in this file will “at least manage to have a discussion based on the content and the interests of the patients and not with each other”.

According to the minister, the discussion could otherwise be “damaging”, “first of all for parents and patients, but also damaging for the doctors themselves, who have to work together for a long time in an area where cooperation is really crucial.”