The Rotterdam hotline for disturbed persons and its social workers may have made mistakes in assessing the mental state of Joel S., who is suspected of stabbing his 21-year-old American housemate Sarah Papenheim to death in their student flat in December last year, NOS reports based on documents its journalists managed to get a look at.
Health
Jun 18 '19 13:30
Jun 14 '19 08:02
Over a third of Dutch parents with young children do not trust information from the government about the need to get their children vaccinated, according to a study by EenVandaag among over 32 thousand people. Parents find information provided by public health institute RIVM incomplete and have doubts about institute's independence. Many young parents therefore go look for answers elsewhere, which often leads to more confusion and doubt, AD reports.
Jun 13 '19 10:30
Cancer patients should be compensated for medicines that are not intended for their specific type of cancer, if they proved effective, according to oncologists, medicines manufacturers and health insurers. In the coming months, they will therefore experiment with a new tailor-made financial model devised by they themselves, the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital announced on Thursday, ANP reports.
Jun 12 '19 20:30
An extensive aid program is ready for the two Dutch orphans, aged 2 and 4 years, who were brought back to the Netherlands from a refugee camp in Syria, radicalization expert Annebregt Dijkman said to newspaper AD. The two young children's parents died in Syria. Their mother, Karenia J. from Zwolle, died due to an illness. And their father, a Belgian jihadist, was killed, according to the newspaper.
Jun 12 '19 19:45
At the start of the year, 2,189 people living in the Netherlands were over 100 years of age, of which 85 percent were women. The total number of centenarians faced a 1.6 percent decline from 2017 figures, but it was still slightly better than last year and well over 13-times more than 1970's official numbers.
If figures continue along the steady trend since 1970, the Netherlands could have 3,520 residents over a hundred years of age by 2030. Statistics Netherlands estimated that 2,811 of those were expected to be women.
Jun 12 '19 09:30
Parliamentarians from both opposition and coalition parties expressed concerns about increasingly intimidating anti-abortion, anti-choice demonstrations at abortion clinics in the Netherlands. Oppositions parties GroenLinks, PvdA, SP, PvdD and 50Plus and ruling party VVD issued a joint call to protect women's right to safely choose abortion, NOS and RTL Nieuws report.
Jun 12 '19 08:42
One in 20 elderly people in the Netherlands face abuse. Ministers Hugo de Jonge of Public Health and Sander Dekker for Legal Protection launched a television campaign to increase awareness on how to recognize and report the abuse of the elderly people. New commercials for the campaign will start appearing on television this week.
Jun 7 '19 14:30
The Dutch professional associations of oncologists and neurologists are concerned about the increasing popularity of medical crowdfunding. They worry that patients are being fooled by the doubtful claims made by alternative healers from abroad, which patients often include in their crowdfunding texts, the Volkskrant reports based on its own research.
Jun 7 '19 10:20
15 percent of Dutch children never play outside. This is especially true for the kids of highly educated parents living in the Randstad area, according to a representative study by Jantje Beton - a charity focused on getting children to play outside, AD reports.
Jun 5 '19 15:25
A number of international news outlets reported the death of Dutch teen author Noa Pothoven as "legal euthanasia", though this apparently was not the case. The teenager died in a hospital bed in the living room of her parental home in Arnhem on Sunday, according to newspaper AD. In a final Instagram post the day before her death, she reported that she had stopped eating or drinking some days ago.
She slipped into a coma and passed away. "After years of fighting it is over", she wrote on the social media platform. "After many conversations and assessments it was decided that I will be released because my suffering is unbearable. It's over. I've not been really living for so long, I survive, and not even really that. I breath but no longer live."
Jun 5 '19 14:10
A petition by the Red Cross to give all high school pupils first aid lessons was signed by more than 50 thousand people. According to the Red Cross, teenagers and young people want to help victims of a car accident for example, but they know too little about how to do it and are therefore afraid. If they are taught first aid at school, helping becomes easier, NOS reports.
Jun 4 '19 07:53
Former CDA Prime Minister Dries van Agt had a stroke two weeks ago, his family confirmed. "We were shocked, it was stressful for a few days. Fortunately there is now recovery. My father is conscious, his mental capacities are not affected", the 88-year-old politician's daughter Eugenie van Agt said, De Stentor reports.
"Physically, he had a major blow", Eugenie continued. The left side of Van Agt's body was affected by the stroke. "The doctors are cautiously optimistic, but it is clear that he will need a lot of rest and intense rehabilitation."
Jun 3 '19 14:20
Bad news for people suffering from hay fever. Weather service Buienradar expects a high pollen count throughout the Netherlands this week. On a scale from one to 10, the pollen count will be around six and seven throughout the week.
The worst hay fever day this week will be Friday, with most of the country having a pollen count of 7. Tuesday and Wednesday will also be bad, especially in the south, east and central parts of the country. The coastal regions can expect a lower pollen count at around level 4.
May 31 '19 15:20
The Healthcare Inspectorate will look into circumcisions performed by people with no medical training. Every year in the Netherlands, 10 to 15 thousand Jewish and Muslim boys are circumcised by non-doctors for religious reasons, Nieuwsuur reports based on its own investigation.
May 31 '19 08:43
Around 75 thousand patients with psychotic disorders in the Netherlands are not receiving the psychotherapy that specialists say they need. Medication is also not always provided according to the prescribed guidelines, according to a Vrije Universiteit Amserdam study commissioned by the association for behavioral and cognitive therapies VGCt, the Volkskrant reports.
May 31 '19 08:10
There are a multitude of pro-anorexia sites where girls with the eating disorder can exchange tips to lose weight. These sites often also include 'coaches', who guide girls and even scold or punish them if they don't do as told. These 'pro-ana-coaches' are often men who deliberately seek out girls with eating disorders to get nude photos or even sex from them, according to the first results of a Dutch study into these coaches, NOS reports.
May 17 '19 13:30
The Netherlands will not ban breast implants with a rough surface amid concerns that they may increase the risk of a rare form of lymph node cancer. But the Dutch government will tighten the rules for the use of implants in breast reconstruction and breast enlargements in an effort to make sure that all women who have them are as safe as possible, Minister Bruno Bruins for Medical Care said in a letter to parliament.
May 14 '19 09:07
Children's rights organization KidsRights wants the government to make the vaccination against measles compulsory. According to chairman and former Children's Ombudsman Marc Dullaert, there is no other solution now that the vaccination rate dropped to 92.9 percent. "Mandatory vaccination seems inevitable", he said to the Volkskrant.
May 14 '19 08:33
Women's shelters in the Netherlands can still do with a lot of improvement, according to National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen. Especially women who want to move on from a shelter to a rental property encounter problems, he said in a new report, NU.nl reports.
May 10 '19 12:30
Thijs H., the man suspected of killing three people in dog walking areas in The Hague and Heerlen this week, sought help from the Maastricht psychiatric clinic Mondriaan after stabbing two people to death in Heerlen, the Telegraaf reports based on sources close to the investigation.
May 9 '19 11:00
The government will push a total of 920 million euros extra into youth care over the next four years, is stated the Spring Memorandum that will be presented later his month, sources in The Hague told newspaper AD.
This year the Dutch municipalities will receive an extra 350 million euros for youth care, followed by 190 million euros per year in the next three years. The government hopes that municipalities will be able to eliminate the deficits they have with this extra money.
May 3 '19 09:09
Dutch municipalities are forced to make drastic budget cuts in order to cope with additional care tasks that now fall under their responsibility, the Volkskrant reports based on its own research. The shortages are so great that some municipalities are even considering closing libraries or reducing road maintenance, according to the newspaper.
May 2 '19 18:49
A new plan by Amsterdam's city leadership announced on Thursday aims to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. The ban is part of the Actieplan Schone Lucht, or Clean Air Action Plan, and covers cars, trucks, mass transit and boats within an expansive emissions-free zone.
Introduced by the city's mayor and aldermen, it will be debated by the full city council from the end of this month, and followed by a six-week period for public comment.
May 1 '19 10:40
Childcare organization Berend Botje will refuse children who have not been vaccinated against mumps, measles and rubella. The Noord-Holland organization, which looks after over 3 thousand children, will also send un-vaccinated children who are already in its care away. According to the sector organization for childcare, over a hundred daycare centers already refuse unvaccinated children, but Berend Botje is the first to send existing customers away, NOS reports.
