Emergency rooms under pressure due to many patients, staff shortages

The emergency rooms in Dutch hospitals are forced to stop admitting patients for several hours almost every week due to a combination of more patients and staff shortages, De Telegraaf reports.

Peter Langenbach, director of Maasstad Hospital, has seen regular emergency room closures in the Rotterdam region over the past weeks. "The increase in emergency patients is enormous during this period. Admission stops occur especially on Friday afternoon and evening and Monday afternoon and evening."

David Baden of the Dutch Association of Emergency Medicine Doctors confirmed the emergency room closures to the newspaper. Every time it happens feels like a failure, he said. "You know that before you make such a decision, you lose the quality of care, that patients may have received less attention."

The continuing closures of emergency rooms are a major problem, Marcel Levi, professor of medicines, said to the newspaper. People who need emergency care usually don't have time to go to another hospital.

The healthcare sector in the Netherlands, like many other sectors, is facing staff shortages. The shortage of trained and available personnel was highlighted and exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.