Dutch health sector facing crippling supply and staff shortages
Hospitals throughout the Netherlands are facing significant shortages of medical supplies like needles, breathing tubes, vascular prostheses, and knee implants. Surgeries are already being postponed as a result, according to research by RTL Nieuws. On top of that, nursing homes are struggling with such major staff shortages this summer that they have to ask residents' loved ones to help, AD reports.
All Dutch hospitals together currently have thousands of outstanding orders that suppliers can’t deliver. Each hospital shorts between 100 and 300 different products, according to RTL. The trade association of producers and suppliers of medical devices, Nefemed, confirmed to the broadcaster that an inability to deliver orders is “the order of the day.”
“The amount of problems is now greater than during the coronavirus crisis,” Gerwijn Meijer of Zorginkoop Netewerk Nederland (ZINN), a purchasing organization with the 30 largest Dutch hospitals affiliated to it, said to the broadcaster. The pandemic is still the leading cause of the shortages. Lockdowns in China still disrupt supply in demand by causing factory staffing problems. Transport lines are still disrupted. And there is an increased demand due to catchup care.
Meijer warned doctors and hospitals that having access to the products they are used to is no longer an automatic thing. “It is two minutes to midnight, a crisis situation against which you have to take measures,” he said to RTL. Shortages cause problems all over the world and will continue to do so for years to come, he said.
Nursing homes are struggling with massive staff shortages, according to the newspaper AD. The 23 nursing homes under Thebe in Midden- en West-Brabant asked patients’ relatives to step in. “We ask: please come and help with showering, taking off compression stockings, or being there for dinner. This can relieve our nurses,” a spokesperson said to the newspaper.
Amsta in Amsterdam sent a similar request to loved ones. The necessary care continues, but those who want anything more than absolutely necessary for their parent or other relatives must roll up their own sleeves, a spokesperson said. AD got similar statements from WZU Veluwe, Drieborg in Zwolle, Amstelring in Amsterdam, and the Saxenburgh group in Hardneberg.
