In a day and a half, almost 90,000 people signed a petition against the decision of outgoing minister Hugo de Jonge to stop heart operations on children in Groningen.
There is also fierce criticism in politics, reports RTV North. PvdA MPs Henk Nijboer and Attje Kuiken call it “crazy that the minister wants to close the pediatric heart surgery in the UMCG Groningen and concentrate everything in the Randstad.”
De Jonge made Monday known that the academic hospitals in Groningen, Amsterdam and Leiden will stop with pediatric heart surgery. The care will be transferred to the University Medical Center Utrecht and the ErasmusMC in Rotterdam. Even the most complex operations for people with congenital heart defects are concentrated in these centers. The minister has opted for this because, in his opinion, surgeons can better maintain their knowledge and skills for specialist operations.
“The expertise that has been built up over 75 years is thus destroyed in one go,” writes the UMCG Center for Congenital Heart Defects at the petition which went online on Thursday evening.
What does it mean?
PvdA members Nijboer and Kuiken have asked parliamentary questions. They state that parents of children who have to be operated on and examined regularly will soon have to go to the Randstad. “Why is it not opted for regional distribution? And what does it mean that if doctors and nurses in Groningen meet all the criteria, then they should be given a watch? What does this mean for the future of care for children in the whole of the north of the Netherlands? ?”
The UMCG is happy with all the support for the maintenance of heart care. “It strengthens us and confirms how necessary this care is for the Northern Netherlands,” said spokesperson Janneke Kruse.
New heart center
Leiden and Amsterdam had already reacted with disappointment. The Leiden University Medical Center calls the choice incomprehensible. The hospital has just a new heart center opened in such a way that care can be provided from the very young to the very old. For the past 25 years, the LUMC has been working together with the Amsterdam UMC in the Center for Congenital Heart Defects CAHAL. “It is therefore an incomprehensible decision for us. We will study this outcome carefully,” said the Leiden hospital.
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