Rich people from Brabant live on average eight years longer than poor people from Brabant. They can live healthier and get better care. The Surinamese Caroline Budike (57) from Den Bosch knows what it’s like to live healthily with little money. Her story is part of the exhibition The health gap in the Jeroen Bosch Hospital. “We could easily live healthy in Suriname, but in the Netherlands that is a lot harder if you are poor.”
For Caroline, healthy eating used to be a matter of course. “On the Surinamese plantation where my mother’s family lived, we lived from our own vegetables, caught fish and made oil from coconuts. Verser and healthier could not,” she says. “We were not rich, but we took good care of ourselves. We knew how to do that.”
Since Caroline lives in the Netherlands, she sees how difficult to eat healthy food can be. “Vegetables and meat from the supermarket are often sprayed or edited. And fresh food is too expensive for people with little money,” she says. “When I was alone with four children after my divorce, it was already nice if I could buy vegetables from jars.”
“Doctors often do not discuss the cause of medical complaints.”
Illness does not always have to do with the body alone. Money problems, stress or prejudices of others can also cause complaints. Doctors at the Jeroen Bosch Hospital notice this every day. “Some patients can no longer pay their medication,” says Miriam de Werd, project leader of the health gap. “Others suffer from overweight due to poor food, or bowel complaints due to stress.”
The figures are poignant: rich people from Brabant live on average eight years longer than poor people from Brabant. And in good health it even saves 24 years. This is according to figures from the Social and Economic Council (SER), an independent advisory body that advises the government on, among other things, income and health.
“For example, this is because poor people often live in neighborhoods with little green, do heavy work or do not learn at home and do not learn what healthy cooking is,” says De Werd. “There are children who have never seen broccoli or zucchini.”
Yet, according to her, doctors still only look at the medical problem too often. “In the hustle and bustle of the hospital, the real cause, such as stress or money worries, is often not discussed.”
“In Suriname, hardly anyone needs to go to the doctor because of their way of life.”
To draw attention to these problems, the Jeroen Bosch Hospital and the municipality of Den Bosch organized the exhibition the health gap. There it becomes visible why poor people live less long and less healthy, and what can be done about it.
Caroline is one of the faces. “I want to show that healthy eating does not always have to be expensive or complicated,” she says. In her De Hambaken district, she cooks a fresh meal every week for local residents who cannot afford it herself. “It’s nice to see that people enjoy and look forward to those healthy meals every week.”
For Caroline it is not just about nutrition, but also about sharing knowledge. “I still remember what it was like when I lived in Suriname as a girl: almost no one went to the doctor because people were so healthy because of their way of life.”
That is also the message of the exhibition: no matter how large the differences between rich and poor are, there is always something to do. “We don’t solve the health gap in one go,” says De Werd, “but we can start by paying attention to someone’s whole situation in the consultation room.”
