The lawyers, trade unions, company doctors and scientists who RTL Nieuws spoke to expect that this is just the beginning and that there will be many more such cases. They are also afraid that this is going to be a long-term business.
Of the five cases that are already known, two are going through personal injury lawyers. The three other cases are supervised by FNV Bureau Beroepszaken.
Manager withheld corona
One case involved an employee in elderly care who had to care for a client without protective equipment during the first wave. It turned out afterwards that his supervisor already knew that this person might have corona.
The carer is now – almost two years later – still on sick leave due to long covid and has already been cut on his salary.
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RTL Nieuws spoke extensively with another care worker: Lenny Wagemans (52). She holds her former employer liable. In March 2020, when the first corona cases were known in the Netherlands, Lenny started her training as an ambulance nurse.
During one of her first ambulance rides, she was on the road with two colleagues. “I remember it like it was yesterday: it was a little after 19:30 on Thursday evening, March 12,” says Lenny.
‘Coughing in my arms’
The man Lenny and her colleagues were traveling to thought he had a brain haemorrhage because his face was a little askew. The emergency room did not ask whether this man had been abroad and had corona complaints. So Lenny and her colleagues didn’t assume that.
When he arrived at the man it turned out that he had already walked outside himself, but he was so short of breath that he could no longer stand on his legs.
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Lenny jumped out of the ambulance to help him: “I hugged him and supported him to the stretcher. While I did that, he was coughing a lot.” Her colleagues put on a mouth cap, but Lenny didn’t have that. At that time, it was not yet standard for ambulance personnel to wear face masks.
“It also turned out that he had just come from abroad, so afterwards my colleagues and I said to each other that we thought this man might have corona,” says Lenny.
self corona
A few days later, Lenny gets complaints herself: “I was at work and turned out to have a high fever. Then I knew something was wrong. I went home immediately.” After a week sick at home, she got even worse and ended up in the hospital. There she was indeed tested positive for corona.
The recovery took a long time. Until the end of April, Lenny was still so ill that she could not work. The following weeks she slowly started to reintegrate, but working on the ambulance turned out to be physically too heavy. She was tired quickly and stimuli came in way too hard, so she couldn’t do her job properly.
Months of complaints followed and in September 2020 she started a week-long rehabilitation. It was established there that her complaints were really the result of her corona infection.
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Lengthy procedures
“The handling of occupational disease cases is often very complex,” explains Marlou Overheul. She is doing her PhD at Utrecht University on occupational diseases and liability: “In the case of covid, for example, it can be difficult to demonstrate that the infection has taken place at work. You can also have become infected somewhere else. And that can stand in the way of liability. .
And if you can make that plausible, you will encounter a second hurdle, says lawyer Coen de Koning: “After that you still have to prove that your complaints are really the result of that corona infection.”
An occupational disease case takes an average of five years, says Marike Schooneveldt of FNV Bureau Occupational Diseases: “But despite the fact that these are often lengthy procedures, we think it is important to point out to employers their role and responsibility in this way.”
Employers’ association AWVN does not think it is a good development that these kinds of cases are now coming: “The corona pandemic has happened to all of us and you cannot blame it. So it is a pity that lawsuits are being filed against it.”
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The company doctor refers to Lenny’s situation as an occupational disease. After a year – in which she was unable to work on the ambulance again – Lenny was fired. But with the help of the FNV’s Occupational Diseases Bureau, Lenny has now held her former employer liable for the corona infection and its consequences.
Unprotected
“That employer sent me out unprotected and I think they should take responsibility for that,” says Lenny.
According to Lenny, there are two important moments when things went wrong: the control room did not ask further questions, so that they did not know on arrival that there was a possible corona infection. And her attendant should have instructed her better beforehand so that she wouldn’t rush out of the ambulance to help this man.
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“I am lucky that after my dismissal I was able to go back to a previous employer, where I can do less physically demanding work,” explains Lenny. But she is concerned about all those people with lung covid who have now been on sick leave for almost two years and will soon receive benefits.
wait
“I’m lucky that I didn’t have to give up a lot of salary, but that also plays a role with many others,” said Lenny. In addition to her temporary drop in wages, she also wants compensation for the emotional and psychological damage of the aftermath.
We now have to wait for a response from Lenny’s former employer. And if he finds that he is not liable for Lenny’s corona infection and all its consequences, a judge will consider it.
The name of Lenny’s former employer is known to the editors.
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