No matter how unacceptable and disgusting it is what went on for years at care farm Aurora Borealis in Wedde, introducing a mandatory permit for care providers with fewer than ten employees is not going to help.
In any case, that is the tenor of the answers that Minister Conny Helder (Long-term Care and Sport) gives to CDA MP Lucille Werner. “A general permit requirement will not exclude abuses in healthcare,” says the minister.
She thus responds to parliamentary questions from the CDA about the sadistic abuses that came to light at the end of last year about the care farm in Wedde. Member of Parliament Werner wanted to know, among other things, why a healthcare provider with fewer than ten employees only has to report to authorities and is not required to obtain a permit. The CDA wonders aloud whether that would not be better, given the abuses at Aurora Borealis.
Risk of ‘administrative burden’
But Helder says that there is a “balance” between the “importance of the permit on the one hand and the administrative and implementation burden on the other”. In other words: if all healthcare providers were to be subject to a licensing requirement, this would entail a considerable administrative burden. According to the minister, the question is whether a permit could have prevented a situation such as in Wedde.
The program Undercover in the Netherlands brought to light the abuses in the small-scale care institution (largely financed through personal budgets – PGB). In two broadcasts – the program informed the police well before those broadcasts – video images were shown of how the vulnerable residents were humiliated and they had to undergo a true reign of terror from the leadership and supervisors.
Torments written down in daily reports
One of the most remarkable findings of this case is that the afflictions to which the residents were subjected were simply written down in the daily reports of the care farm. But authorities that were supposed to check on this never did. Let alone that any action was taken on it. Minister Helder acknowledges this once again in her written answer. According to her, there is “no guideline for the frequency of visits to care farms” by the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ).
According to Helder, the IGJ practices “risk-based supervision”. The IGJ does depend on – apart from the visits – reports from healthcare providers, patients or other parties involved. Incidentally, Aurora Borealis from Wedde was investigated once: in 2007. Only after the report to Undercover in the Netherlands did the IGJ, together with the judiciary, go for it.
Minister Helder informs the residents and parents [of vertegenwoordigers] “offered victim support”. According to Helder, if the founders of Aurora Borealis want to start a new healthcare company, they will be “immediately placed under tighter supervision by the IGJ”.