According to the RIVM, transport from Cape Verde to a Dutch hospital is done with special vehicles. “Both the aircraft used and the ambulance with which they will be transported are specially equipped for this type of work. Moreover, this is not the first time we have carried out this operation.”
The spokesperson refers, among other things, to the Ebola patient which landed at Schiphol in 2014. It concerned a UN soldier who helped with an outbreak of the deadly disease in Liberia, West Africa. Also last year, when a man in Heemskerk caused panic By reporting to the GP with serious complaints, the emergency plan was put into action. It later turned out that he did not have the dreaded Lassa virus, but the less serious malaria.
Once the patients have been transferred to the ambulance, they are taken to a specially equipped department of a hospital, accompanied by police motorcycles. The RIVM cannot yet say which hospital that will be, although the Leiden University Medical Center, the UMC Utrecht and the Radboud University Medical Center Nijmegen have indicated that they are ready to receive patients.
