GPs concerned: “Actual number of corona deaths is higher” | Inland

For example, an elderly Perquin patient aged 89 from the province of Limburg died on Sunday alone in his home from a suspected corona. The man called a doctor twice about his complaints; stuffiness, fever and colds. When he called for the third time on Sunday evening and the doctor on duty got into the car to consult the man, it was already too late.

General practitioner Perquin, who practices an average village practice in Central Limburg, tells the sad story. “This gentleman was a very nice patient of mine. When he called complaints on Friday, we had – as it should be – consulted with the GGD. For me, it was obvious symptoms of corona. The GGD advised that the man be taken ill and did not want to take a test. ”

Desperate call to GP

Over the weekend, however, the complaints of the very elderly increased and he called the GP. “During a telephone triage, he was found not stuffy enough. Later in the evening, he made another call, most likely very desperate, to the GP post that he was getting less and less air. The doctor got in the car, but when he got to the house the man didn’t open the door. The police had to come in to kick in the door. The man was dead on the floor, he had suffered cardiac arrest. The doctor has not been on the road for half an hour; your condition may deteriorate so quickly if you are presumably infected with corona. Terribly sad that he died alone in the house, ”says the doctor.

Perquin, as well as other GPs, have called De Telegraaf because they believe that this epidemic “tends to conclude as much as possible that someone is too healthy or too vulnerable to a test or hospitalization.”

Decreasing curve RIVM

Subsequently, the GP wanted to report the man’s death to the GGD Noord- en Midden Limburg. “Our guidelines – received from the GP crisis team – state that if a patient dies at home with suspected corona, the GP is obliged to report this to the GGD. But who is my surprise? When I called to report this, I was told they couldn’t keep up! “

Perquin is outraged by this. “RIVM reports mortality rates to the decimal point every day, but this is not included here. This is false accuracy and folksy. Then I see on television that the curve would decrease, but of course that is nonsense if they do not include these reports. ”

Whether or not to test for corona

A spokesman for the GGD Noord- en Midden Limburg: “It is very sad that this has happened. But we only give advice on whether or not to test. Doctors are responsible for assessing whether people need medical care. It is true that at the moment only the mortality rates of people who have tested positive for corona are published. Corona is an A disease. In an A disease, coercive measures can be forced to protect the population and a ‘suspicion of’ must always also be reported. However, this is not the case with Covid-19. The guideline that the doctor is talking about has therefore never been issued by RIVM. If a deceased patient has not been tested for it, there may also be underlying suffering or the flu. So indeed we don’t have all the people who died from corona in the picture. ”

The GP disputes that the GGD only advises on the tests. “That is a very different picture from reality. We received a clear no as an answer. ” He and his assistant feel very bad about the events. “Such a sad story. Had a bad feeling about it all week. The man turned out to have no family. The police had to call the funeral director. Finally we found a distant cousin; it was terrible to tell him what his uncle’s end was like. We are now advised by the regional crisis GP team to keep a list of suspected corona deaths. Maybe they will be used someday. ”

All the corona news can hardly be kept up to date and therefore conveyed home workers Pim Sedee and Kamran Ullah provide an overview of the most important stories every day. Listen the podcast here, below or via your own podcast app.

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