Psychiatry training GGzE in Eindhoven is still allowed to continue

The psychiatry training at the Mental Health Care Eindhoven (GGzE) will also be maintained after 1 January 2023. This has been decided by the Registration Committee for Medical Specialists (RGS). However, the training remains under intensive supervision.

Earlier, the RGS decided to withdraw the license of the training, because there would be an unsafe learning climate. But according to the committee, the situation has improved after drastic measures. The license for training as a psychiatrist is valid for one year. In the meantime, it will be tested again. This way the committee keeps a finger on the pulse.

In July, the psychiatrist training was still suspended after complaints from at least ten former doctors in specialist training. According to the Registration Committee, this showed that there is an unsafe learning climate. In September, the RGS even proceeded to an intended decision to definitively discontinue the training. The RGS is a body that assesses whether the quality and safety of medical education and training is in order. After further investigation, the RGS judges that this is not necessary after all.

Replace three trainers
After the suspension of the training, GGzE took major measures to improve the training climate. For example, three of the four trainers have been replaced. Moreover, the main trainer is no longer the person who deals with complaints from doctors in training, among other things. This was the case before.

The exact nature of the complaints is unknown, although the RGS concluded that there was an ‘unsafe learning climate’. Complaints from former doctors in training included the main trainer, Machteld Marcelis. It was previously announced that she had resigned her work as head teacher and will certainly not return before March 1, 2023. In addition to being head trainer at GGzE, Marcelis is a professor at Maastricht University. There too, several complaints about her were received last summer. The university has launched an investigation.

‘End of nasty period’
According to GGzE, the granting of the license for one year brings an end to ‘a nasty period of uncertainty for doctors in specialist training, trainers and other parties involved’. “A period that was also accompanied by strong emotions and damage to people,” GGzE writes in a statement.

According to chairman of the board Luc Kenter, a broad core team has worked ‘really hard’ to make the training climate safer. “I am incredibly proud of everyone who has contributed to this, often under difficult circumstances. What matters now is to maintain this in our normal, daily work and I have every confidence in that,” writes he.

12,000 people treated
Now that the closure of the training has been lifted, this gives the mental health institution a lot of air. 20 to 25 doctors in training to become psychiatrists can now continue. If they had had to continue their education elsewhere, the workload for GGzE psychiatrists would have become much too great. This is because the doctors in training psychiatrists take a lot of work off their hands.

Clients would then have had to wait longer for care. Experts previously told Omroep Brabant that GGzE would have a huge problem if the training was definitively closed. GGzE treated about 12,000 people last year who need psychological help.

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