Letters to the editor: Let healthy elderly provide informal care

letter of the day

The Netherlands already has a shortage of 50,000 nurses and each year the shortage continues to increase by 10,000. The situation is especially ominous for North Brabant. Forty years ago, as a freshly graduated psychogerontologist for the Province of Noord-Brabant, I was allowed to write a policy memorandum about future policy on the elderly. An alarming conclusion was that the province would account for no less than a quarter of the total aging population in the Netherlands.

When my mother got dementia fourteen years ago, thanks to the efforts of the entire parental family of twelve children, we were able to take care of her at home for seven years. So every weekend from Saturday evening to Sunday afternoon I went from Tilburg to Limburg to babysit my mother. But in the end we couldn’t even handle it anymore, and we had to let mother stay in the nursing home for too long.

It takes a village to care for a person with dementia† The generation of Dutch elderly who will soon be in need of help has on average only 1.9 children to fall back on. And the aging North Brabant (and Limburg) is once again below that average.

For many years I’ve been breaking my head about what to do if the generation I belong to becomes massively in need of help. I can only think of one solution that offers solace: ask (or oblige) healthy elderly people under 75 to provide informal care to their peers in need of care – for example two days a week.

Unfeasible? New. Most people are good. And it is precisely the healthy elderly who benefit from this solution, after all, the following also applies to people in need of help: today me, tomorrow you.

Huub Buijssenpsychogerontologist, Tilburg

Final exam

The biology final exam is about biology, the physics exam is about physics and the art exam is about art, only the Dutch exam is not about Dutch.

In class I work with my students on Dutch literature – we read, discuss and research novels and stories, read and write poems. In addition, the lessons are about the Dutch language – the history of our language, how the language changes, how children learn language, communication rules, the influence of style on persuasiveness, the image of language varieties and the relationship between language and identity.

But the final exam in Dutch was again not about Dutch but about an exhibition in Venice by the English artist Damien Hirst and about big data. What thought is behind that? That we should give students with art and computer science an advantage? It felt like a huge anticlimax.

But the misery does not end there, because although the content of the selected texts is completely arbitrary, their form and origin are not. Year after year, the Dutch exam consists solely of edited and dated opinion pieces, columns and comments from invariably the same magazines.

Why not even a poem by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, a short story by Bertram Koeleman, a polemical text by Jeroen Brouwers, a linguistic article by Marc Oostendorp or a literary article by Van Maaike Meijer? Why not take a Dutch exam that feels like a crown on my work instead of a slap in the face?

Auke Abma, Dutch teacher, The Hague

Jeroen Brouwers

In his obituary on the death of Jeroen Brouwers, Hans Bouman notes that ‘for mysterious reasons’ Brouwers was never awarded the PC Hooft Prize. I have the following to point out: as a jury member of the PC Hooft Prize 2010 I proposed to award Brouwers ‘before it’s too late’.

My proposal was then blocked by my Flemish jury colleague Geert Buelens, arguing that Brouwers ‘didn’t need such a prize after all’. As if it was an incentive prize. Unfortunately, the other judges were impressed by this spurious argument.

All Lansu, La Palma (Spain)

Climate Minister

Coal-fired power stations that are shut down, an excellent climate measure, but where is our climate minister Rob Jetten when it comes to drought, nitrogen, overcrowded highways and strongly increasing air traffic? Shouldn’t a climate minister be more important than all other ministers and governments that deal with mobility, (digital) infrastructure, housing, nature and landscape? It’s not that we have a lot of time to make the right choices and we can’t perpetually prioritize other priorities.

Mark MillerUtrecht

Radical ideas

A year ago, after trying in vain to lie out of the ‘function elsewhere’ issue, Mark Rutte announced in an interview with news hour that he had radical ideas about a new governance culture and his own role in it.

Could the fact that he said in the same interview that if he became prime minister again he wouldn’t suddenly do all kinds of things differently, that’s the reason why we haven’t heard anything about his radical ideas since?

Marcel BesselinkUithoorn

scars

Columnist Tim ‘S Jongers puts his credentials on the table: he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to growing up in poverty. And he still suffers from its effects. Even if you, like him, have been able to catch up, you are not yet rid of the misery of your youth. Brave and beautiful that he shows his scars to stand up for the children who have to live under such circumstances today.

Jan ZweensPaterswolde

XL terraces

On Monday there was an almost cheering article in the newspaper about the space that catering terraces are given in Enschede, aptly called XL terraces. What is being forgotten is that this is a public, public space that must be easily accessible and accessible to everyone.

In particular, the disabled, wheelchair and scooter users, the blind and partially sighted are often confronted with passages that are too narrow on sidewalks and squares. The article referred to a minimum passage of 1.5 meters. But according to the standards that are used in Amsterdam, among others, there must be at least 1.8 meters so that a passage from both sides remains possible.

I wonder whether the municipality of Enschede is taking this into account. In Amsterdam, Clients’ Interest is the body that monitors the accessibility of public space. Until recently, it advised the Central Traffic Commission on this point. Apart from that, it is of course crazy that so much public space is being sacrificed for terraces, especially in an urban environment. If you live in a small house, these kinds of spaces, as well as parks, etc. are essential to feel good.

Frits WegenwijsMobility and Accessibility advisor, Amsterdam