A majority of the House of Representatives wants a brake on further closures of emergency rooms or entire hospitals in the region and demands mandatory involvement of municipalities.
In a debate on acute care, PvdA and CDA announced that they would present an amendment for an ’emergency brake’ on further hospital closure plans. They also want to have it laid down in law that politicians in the region have something to say about it, instead of hospitals and health insurers being able to decide among themselves, as is currently the case.
A majority of PVV, SP, PvdA, GroenLinks, CDA, CU, JA21 and BBB expressed concern about the many closures of emergency departments in recent years. Such as the closures in Stadskanaal and Hoogeveen, previously the hospital closures in Delfzijl and Winschoten and now the plans to close Sneek, Heerenveen and Zutphen.
Minister Ernst Kuipers only insists that there is no other way. There are not enough staff, he says. Moreover, in the current health care system, he does not have the opportunity to intervene. “Ultimately, I’m not talking about which care is provided at which location.” Kuipers also advises against motions that demand greater democratic control from municipalities.
The House is concerned that ambulances are increasingly having trouble getting patients to the hospital on time, within the standard of 45 minutes. Minister Kuipers wants to abolish that standard of 45 minutes because he thinks it is too simple: for some treatments, such as angioplasty for a heart attack, it is already necessary to drive to specialized hospitals.
‘Trees not up to heaven’
Only the VVD and D66 think that the current movement of scaling up and merging emergency rooms and hospitals should continue. This is because, according to them, the quality of care would otherwise be at stake due to staff shortages. “You act as if the trees grow to the sky,” D66 member Wieke Paulusma responded to CDA member Joba van den Berg, when he stated that the draining of facilities in the region must stop.
Like Minister Kuipers, VVD and D66 believe that many emergency departments in the area offer a false sense of security, because emergency departments with few doctors also do not provide good care. “Sometimes when patients come to the hospital, they still have to wait days before they are helped,” said Judith Tielen of the VVD.
Tielen and Paulusma also believe that hospital care is not sacred and that more care should be provided to general practitioners, care homes and other smaller centres. “The role of emergency care has become too great, much acute care can also be done at the GP,” said Paulusma.
Caroline van der Plas of BBB, Fleur Agema of the PVV and Lilian Marijnissen of the SP strongly disagreed and stated that much more effort should be made to keep hospitals open in the region. ,,If you say that otherwise it is false security, you turn the matter around”, says Marijnissen. “We have to make sure that the quality of care is good.”
Laundry list of objections
PvdA member Julian Bushoff pointed out that reports of hospital closures make it unattractive for doctors to apply for jobs. He and Van den Berg of the CDA also believe that efforts should be made much harder to keep care in the region going. They also pointed out that after concentration of care, the quality in a larger hospital does not necessarily have to be better.
The plans for the closure of Antonius Sneek and Tjongerschans Heerenveen also passed by. CDA member Van den Berg and Lisa Westerveld of GroenLinks pointed out that the closure plans for those hospitals were only drawn up by the health insurers and hospital management. “It came out of the blue for the patient organization and municipalities.”
SP member Marijnissen also pointed to the laundry list of objections such as waiting lists and too long arrival times that the municipalities of Hoogeveen and Stadskanaal have listed about the closures of the emergency services of Refaja and Bethesda. Remarkably enough, Tielen of the VVD mentioned the cooperation between the Treant hospitals in Drenthe as a good example of cooperation in healthcare.