typically.nl

For a “first world” country, certain parts of healthcare in Nederland are in a pretty sad state, especially specialized care. Also, falling ill gets you no sympathy. Most often you will be told to take a pain killer and wait it out. The first-line medical care for Nederlanders is given by huisartsen (house doctors or MDs).

The system in Nederland is funny this way: when you fall ill you can not visit the hospital. This alone might come as quite a surprise to you, depending on your country of origin. Seriously though, when you fall ill you are expected to call a regular huisarts and make an appointment. Naturally, you might often fall ill at night or during a weekend. Even then you are expected to wait until Monday (outside of acute emergencies obviously).

Most Nederlanders accept this state of healtcare as if it’s perfectly normal.

When you have finally made your afspraak, you cycle over to the doctor’s office and wait your turn. You will be pleasantly greeted by other sick people in various stages of decay. After possibly an hour or more, your name comes up.

Medical professionals

Luckily, general doctors/huisartsen/MDs in Nederlands are quite skilled and possibly the best in Europe. If there is something seriously wrong with you, you will receive treatment. If however, you just have a bug, most huisartsen will simply send you away after doing a quick checkup. There seems to be an active policy against medication. Compare to France where the doctor will drug you up something fierce for just about anything! In Nederland you are going to have to be strong-willed to enjoy any kind of drug. It’s almost as though doctors are compensating.

The most famous phrase uttered by huisartsen in this case is “neemt u toch gewoon een paracetamol” or just take an acetaminophen, which is the most common type of pain killer. Throat infection or not, they know that the human body is perfectly capable of healing itself. This might leave you with a sore feeling (no pun intended) after visiting a huisarts. On the plus side: few bacteria in Nederland are resistant to drugs, although this is beginning to change. And on the plusser side: it saves a huge amount of money.

Really really sick

When you are really sick, the huisarts will send you to a specialized professional. He or (rarely) she will work in a hospital and you will need to have a note written by the huisarts. With this note, you call the hospital to get an afspraak. Shocker: even for faily common procedure there is almost always a waiting list. You have a cyst in your belly? Expect to wait six weeks for it to be removed. Other procedures have similar waiting lists. Most people grudgingly accept this state of affairs, which is sad. Hospitals blame the governement, they blame insurance companies and they complete the circle. Nothing gets done about it though, except that people will shop for care in neighbouring countries Belgium and Germany, where waiting lists do not exist. When you meet a specialist in the hospital, you again receive quite excellent care. Doctors are highly skilled, driven, and work insane hours. More about this in a later article.

Emergencies

The ‘huisarts as first line of defense’ strategy doesn’t work in case of an emergency. And luckily, we have a national number named 112. Call this number to send for paramedics, by law they are required to be with you in ten minutes. They will treat you on the spot and/or take you to the emergency room in the nearest hospital. Again, the doctors working here really are very skilled–healthcare when you receive it is of very high quality.

Socialized healthcare

Since the mid-2000s Nederland has a hybrid system of health insurance. The state does not provide it; this is left to insurance companies. But the state regulates their fees; it sets minimum and I believe maximum also (or this is left to the market). The state then provides subsidy for those with a low income. After an initial struggle, this system now seems to be working quite effectively. Some market forces in healthcare allow for cheaper prices and competition, while the government regulations ensure a basic level of care and comparatively cheap help for people who have low income. Most people have extra insurance on top of the state-mandated basispakket (basic package) in which they receive compensation for ‘luxury care’.