“I really had a war with my body for a while.” This is how Anita Elling describes her battle with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestine. The Scheper Hospital in Emmen has established the Treant Infection Center especially for people with an inflammatory disease.
Internist-infectiologist Sander van Assen is one of the advocates for the center. “It is a clustering of all expertise, knowledge and skills within Treant in the field of infectious diseases. So a collaboration between several departments and departments that understand infectious diseases and everything related to them,” Van Assen explains.
In practice, this means that there are beds specifically for patients who are in hospital due to an infection. There is also a department that specifically looks at alleged allergic reactions to antibiotics, because it often turns out that someone is not allergic after all.
“That is important because we avoid certain antibiotics because of the alleged allergy. And these are often the most effective with the fewest side effects,” says Van Assen.
Elling has known for five months that she has Crohn’s disease. She is particularly pleased with the vaccination clinic. The medications Elling receives do not go together with certain vaccinations that you need, for example, when you travel. In consultation, it has now been decided to first get those shots before she starts taking the medication.
“The great thing is that it is about quality of life. About being human and how you can best deal with this,” says Elling. “Because my illness has had quite an impact.”
According to Van Assen, primary care, such as general practitioners in the region, also benefit from the new infection center. Furthermore, it saves patients an often long trip to hospitals in other parts of the country.
Watch the video about the new center in the hospital in Emmen below: