This is stated by the Council for Public Health & Society (RVS), an important advisory body for government and parliament NRC. The Council is delivering an opinion today, To our healthwhich should advance public health.
Public health care
The RV writes in the advice that Dutch public health care is ‘regulated too non-committal and fragmented’. There would be too little attention for the long term and too little money being invested, and that must change.
Moreover, there are major socio-economic health differences in the country and the life expectancy of the average Dutch person has dropped from a leading position in the European Union to the average.
Chairman of the council, Jet Bussemaker, tells the newspaper: “We were in the vanguard, but we are hobbling backwards”.
GGD as public health care
Public health care is largely provided by the 25 GGDs in the Netherlands, which fall under the municipalities. The GGDs are responsible for protecting and promoting the health of residents.
This could include arranging vaccinations, youth health care (such as the consultation office), infectious disease control, and mapping out the health risks of, for example, contaminated surface water or a nearby factory.
During the corona pandemic, the importance of public health became clear, when GGDs were busy fighting the spread of corona and increasing vaccination coverage. Now that the corona pandemic has entered the endemic phase, in which the virus is still circulating but everyone has had a vaccination or built up resistance, there is a great risk that the focus on public health will weaken again.
This has been established by the RVS and the body warns that this should not happen. Certainly not because the GGDs, through their emphasis on prevention, can make a significant contribution to reducing the pressure on the overburdened healthcare sector.
Health Commissioner
One of the recommendations to improve this is to appoint a ‘health commissioner’, who should ensure more involvement from the ministries. The GGD is currently still a dossier of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and there is little involvement from other ministries.
The RV’s plan is to appoint one ‘vigorous’ figure to work as a new, special government commissioner for several years.
This health commissioner must make proposals for legally established goals, draw up a health agenda, encourage municipalities to do their best, and report to the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Increased budget
Other recommendations of the RVS are to structurally increase the budget. According to the council, ‘shockingly little is being spent on public health care’ at the moment. Moreover, the money is often temporary.
In 2019, 97 billion was spent on healthcare. 2.8 billion was available for public health care.
Much more staff needed
In addition, the Council wants to lay down legal objectives in the Public Health Act to make the objectives less voluntary. Finally, much more staff must be found, but that is a much more difficult job.
But a more visible GGD – for example by incorporating it into a health practice or allowing it to go more into the neighborhood – and more involvement from national politics can help, the council believes.
