In the Netherlands, general practitioners on strike over work overload
Dutch general practitioners demonstrated to denounce the deterioration of their working conditions, in The Hague, on July 1, 2022. AFP - BART MAAT
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Several thousand general practitioners demonstrated on Friday June 30 in The Hague, a few hundred meters from the seat of the Dutch government.
They protested against the work overload caused by an overflow of compulsory paperwork but also by the long waiting lists in hospitals and psychiatric care centers.
Advertising
Read more
With our correspondent in The Hague,
Antoine Mouteau
“
A doctor for everyone!
This is the slogan of the thousands of general practitioners gathered on the Malieveld, a vast lawn in the center of The Hague.
Coming from all over the Netherlands, they explain that they no longer succeed in caring for a large part of their patients.
“
We have too little time for patients.
Hospitals are overcrowded so often we pick up patients who have not yet recovered at all,
says Dr. Korver.
Medicines are not delivered so we have to do a lot of additional consultations because of that.
We have to do a lot more things than two years ago.
»
Many here also explain being drowned by the administrative work required by the State and private insurance.
They fear that this situation will end up discouraging the youngest, like Bas Noordermeer, 33.
“
I have been a doctor for two years and I would like to remain so for another thirty or forty years.
But for now, I don't work full time anymore because it's not possible anymore.
And I have a lot of doctor friends who are on the verge of stopping completely
, ”he says.
Photo consultation
More and more Dutch doctors are refusing many consultations and asking patients to send them pictures instead.
Not sure in any case that their despair is taken seriously.
The Minister of Health who had promised to meet them canceled at the last moment.
But faced with the anger of the demonstrators, he ended up going out to speak to them for a few minutes in the courtyard of the seat of government.
►Also read
: Australia: in Sydney, striking nursing staff demand more resources
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Netherlands
Health and medicine
Social issues
Employment and Labor