The Chamber still wants Agema to keep the Heerlen hospital fully open

The House of Representatives is putting pressure on the Minister of Health Agema to keep the Zuyderland hospital in Heerlen open. A majority wants the minister to take responsibility for keeping the hospital open, including the birth center, intensive care and emergency care.

Surprisingly, Agema’s own party, the PVV, also voted for the move with GroenLinks-PvdA and SP, as did coalition partner BBB.

Last week, the minister said in the debate on the matter that it is not about care provision. That depends on the hospital management. She wants to talk to the Zuyderland administrators one more time. Agema will say that “last ditch effort” to change the management’s mind, but she doesn’t want to go any further. “No false hope.”

She strongly rejected other proposals from MPs to secure the future of the Zuyderland hospital. But the majority accepted these proposals today. For example, the House believes there should be pilots with a fixed budget for emergency care and to reduce the administrative burden.

The management of the hospital wants to keep special emergency care at the Sittard-Geleen site. It is too expensive to maintain comprehensive care in both places and there are also insufficient staff.

During the election campaign, several parties, including the PVV, promised to maintain hospital care in Heerlen at the current level. The House of Representatives believes that Agema should fulfill “that promise to the mining sector”.

The meeting between the minister and the management of Zuyderland is expected to take place next week. The House then wants to talk to her again about the future of health care in South Limburg.