All parties happy with new approach to aftercare for medical mistakes

Every year there are several tens of thousands of medical incidents, with just as many victims. The severity of medical errors and other incidents varies, as do their consequences. These range from death to, for example, more pain.

Medicatiefout

Bets Vermeulen lost her husband Ton in 2018 after a medication error. She told about it in the donor magazine of the Victim Support Fund. He became unwell at a campsite in the Veluwe. The doctor sent him to the hospital for blood tests. That called the same evening that he had to come in for further investigation. He was admitted with a pulmonary embolism.

His wife brought him some things the next morning, just as he was being taken for a brain scan. It was made because he had a brain haemorrhage. “I’ll see you after the scan,” she said to her husband.

That moment has not come. Ton Vermeulen suffered a second brain haemorrhage and fell into a coma. The doctors said he would die shortly and that happened the same afternoon. Even before his death, Bets Vermeulen was told that her husband had been given the wrong dose of a medicine.

case manager

The hospital also made her aware of the possibility of counseling by a case manager. Case manager Ineke Verschure accompanied her to interviews with the hospital, maintained contact with the complaints officer, assisted with the legal procedure and, above all, talked to her.

Vermeulen is very satisfied with the role of her case manager. “If I had wanted it, I could have left everything to her,” she says in the aforementioned interview.

Bart van der Kamp lost his 79-year-old, until then perfectly healthy father, in November 2019, after a missed diagnosis. He is very satisfied with Verschure’s support. Bart’s father was admitted with vague complaints. Extensive examination revealed nothing, but the CT scan missed a bowel blockage. With fatal consequences.

Multitude of problems

From data from the first three years (2018-2020) of the long-running VICTIMS-study shows that more than two thirds of the victims of a medical mistake have physical problems. About 28 percent suffer from severe symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) and almost a third have money problems.

Furthermore, many victims of medical incidents have legal and work-related problems and feel a lack of emotional support. Finally, they often encounter too little openness and recognition from the hospital where the incident took place.

The case managers of the Victim Support Fund appear to be able to offer solace in all these areas. They provide victims of medical malpractice with practical, legal and psychosocial support.

This may consist of attending meetings with the hospital concerned, ‘translating’ documents full of medical jargon, offering support in the event of legal wrangling or assisting in applying for housing adaptations from the municipality.

The Victim Support Fund will now look at how this approach can be applied throughout the country.

–