Gert-Jan Jonker from Etten-Leur is only 67, but needs care every day. He has problems with his back, heart and kidneys and is in a wheelchair. Yet he is often on his own, because due to the cutbacks in healthcare, there are not enough staff to help him every day. “I think that’s very bad,” says Gert-Jan. “My carers sometimes have tears in their eyes too, what now?”
Gert-Jan’s apartment is full of devices that help him get through the day. But he mainly depends on home care. Yet his caretakers only visit a few times a week. “They do everything to take care of me. But yes, cuts,” says Gert-Jan. “I have all the indications to get care, but they can’t do anything. They have their hands in their hair.”
For Gert-Jan, this even means that he is forced to sleep in his wheelchair for most of the week. “They can only come twice a week to put me to bed,” he says. “In fact, it only happened once this week. I can tell you, I was heaven too rich that night. But it’s too bizarre for words.”
“I was in hospital for more than two weeks, because there was no home care.”
Due to the shortages in care, Gert-Jan is often in hospital longer than necessary. “With Pentecost I ended up in the hospital in Tilburg with a mild heart attack. I spent more than two weeks there, because there was no home care,” he says. “I’ve often said that I feel like I’m occupying someone else’s bed. It’s really ridiculous.”
The problems that Gert-Jan encounters will probably only get worse in the future. More and more people need care. But at the same time, health insurers are lowering the rates they are willing to pay to healthcare organizations. And as a result, those organizations will have to make even stricter choices next year about how many employees they deploy and what they will and will not reimburse.
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Gert-Jan sometimes spends hours on his daily care, when home care does not come by (photo: Omroep Brabant)
2023-07-28 17:27:34
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