ICU director Gommers expresses criticism about corona Policy

Diederik Gommers, director of the Dutch Intensive Care Association (NVIC) and member of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), expressed criticism towards the Dutch corona policy in an interview with AD.

“We worked very hard, we did our best. But the testing policy should have been better, we looked too narrowly at the crisis, also within the OMT. The national patient dispersal works well,” he told the newspaper.

Gommers says, among other things, that action should be taken more quickly when the virus flares up again. “I’m an impatient intensivist, of course, but I don’t get it: first, there is a Cabinet meeting on Friday. On Sunday in [the Prime Minister’s official residence] the Catshuis, there will be a consultation again, and then it must take till Tuesday until a decision is made, which will take effect later. If I have any doubts in an ICU for that long, the patient has already died.”

In addition, Gommers thinks that the Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, and the Public Health Minister, Hugo De Jonge, should approach their press conferences differently. “There are always only measures, but there is no real story,” he says. “It’s all not very transparent at the moment.”