LIVE | Koning visits corona doctors in Erasmus MC | Abroad

King Willem-Alexander paid a visit to the Erasmus MC hospital in Rotterdam on Wednesday. He visited the emergency room and the ambulance hall. He also spoke with corona doctors and nurses, and with hospital chairman Ernst Kuipers. As chairman of the National Acute Care Network, he is one of the faces of the fight against the virus and the care for patients.

During the visit, the king wanted to hear how the current second wave is different from last spring’s first wave. The difference is that during the first wave there was more understanding for the people in care, says nurse Daphne van Weezel of the hospital. “That affects you as a nurse and as a person. We have seen people visit a family member while they had corona themselves. And if you say something about it, you hear ‘what are you worried about?’ The understanding is sometimes hard to find. ”

Another difference, according to Van Weezel, is that doctors and nurses now know better how to treat corona patients. “Care has improved thanks to agents such as dexamethasone and remdesivir. But the virus still makes you very sick. ”

The king also asked what the hospital employees think is necessary to properly deal with the next outbreak, proposals that politics could perhaps use in the formation of a new cabinet. One of the suggestions was a pool of ‘reservists’, of people trained for care in a hospital, who have all the qualifications but who now work in a different place. If they receive regular training and remain in the picture, they can quickly get back to work if necessary. “In the Netherlands it concerns tens of thousands of people,” says hospital boss Ernst Kuipers.

Because that there will be a third wave is likely for Erasmus employees. And that wave will also affect people with other conditions. Kuipers: “It takes time to make up for the backlog of regular care. In October we had not yet gotten rid of the missed treatments from the spring and then came the second wave. About 7,000 melanomas are diagnosed every year. We are now 700 to 1100 diagnoses behind, but those tumors are not gone. ”

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