Hospitals are unable to waiting lists to get rid of those that have arisen during corona. Even now that the pandemic seems to be over, hospitals are barely getting round to catch-up care.
According to doctors, it is time to think about which care will and will not be provided in the future. They don’t see it happening that the waiting list will disappear.
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According to the Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa), there are now an estimated 110,000 extra people on the waiting list due to corona. That number has not declined in recent months.
These patients are not life-threatening situations. But for those waiting for a cataract, hip or knee surgery, delay causes a lot of inconvenience, emphasizes Bart Berden, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg. “People with pain who have to take eight paracetamol or more every day, or who can no longer move properly through their hip or knee.”
‘And now it’s my turn’
The patience that people had during the pandemic is over, sees Michael Verhofstad, surgeon at Erasmus MC. “At the beginning people said: of course, I fully understand that I have to wait because people with cancer or a heart attack precede. But in the imaging, corona is over. Now people say: And now it’s my turn.”
More and more people think they wait too long, says Verhofstad. And that is palpable, he thinks. “We have tried for two years to prevent people from falling over the edge, in the sense that they suffer permanent health damage. But that does not mean that this is care that you can postpone indefinitely. People do need that care. “
According to him, it cannot be ruled out that some form of permanent damage has occurred here and there. “Even if it is only psychological damage that has been incurred, because the delayed physical care they need has taken too long in their experience.”
Grietje has been waiting for an appointment for a scan of her back for two years.
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Gretel has been waiting for her doctor’s appointment for two years
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The main reason for the continuing backlog of care is and remains the lack of staff. In addition, hospitals struggle with a lot of long-term and short-term absenteeism.
According to Berden, we have to learn to live with scarcity in healthcare. According to him, the question that is increasingly being asked is whether treatment or surgery is actually necessary. This also applies to serious conditions.
“Not operating is also an option. You have cancer patients for whom surgery is an option, but you have to see whether that is also the best option. We are discussing more than before: what do you expect from the treatment? If a patient says: I don’t want to be bothered too much by certain procedures or a cure, then you can decide not to do it.”
Bureaucracy
According to him, there are also benefits to be gained from providing care at a distance, where people do not have to come to the hospital. The bureaucracy in care must also be tackled, and cooperation between different care providers must be improved.
“If an 80-year-old well-trained person enters the hospital, he withstands the operation better. The problem is: outside the hospital, healthcare institutions do not want to pay for fitness equipment for such a man, because there is no indication. We cannot do it either. hospital says people should put down an exercise bike, then it won’t happen.”
Finally, Berden mentions the citizen himself. “That is still an exciting one. We can also expect something from the citizen. That he himself starts exercising weeks before the operation, so that he comes out of the operation better. That we also discuss his or her behavior in the conversation with the patient. we think it’s a step too far now.”
Surgeon Verhofstad is most concerned about the patients who do not receive the care: “That we can no longer provide it, although they are actually entitled to it according to the standards that we have jointly established.”
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