Limburg mental health institute halts youth care due to budget cuts: report

Limburg mental health institution Mondriaan will stop treatment for a number of children in the coming weeks, director Juliette van Eerd said to NRC. Due to municipal budget cuts, the institution has to provide the same care with fewer and fewer people, and the situation is unsustainable, Van Eerd said.

Mondriaan currently treats over 500 children. Exactly how many children will soon have to find care elsewhere, is not yet clear. "I'm intervening before the workload for my psychiatrists and nurses becomes irresponsibly high", Van Eerd said to the newspaper. "No one wants the children to be the victims of the situation, but it can't go on like this." She added that there is likely no good alternatives for the children in the immediate vicinity, because they are receiving specialist care at Mondriaan.

Mondriaan is not the first institute to withdraw partly as youth care provider. According to NU.nl, youth protection organization William Schrikker Groep announced on Friday that it will not participate in the healthcare procurement in Dordrecht and its surrounding area. The organization finds the offered compensation too low to guarantee good quality care. As a result, kids in some 300 families now don't know if they'll still get help from their counselor next year, according to the newspaper.