In Enschede people no longer have to call around for hours when they need a doctor

Also on a average Tuesday morning, just before noon, a row of patients is waiting for the brown leather banks of the emergency post of Hospital Medisch Spectrum Twente (MST). The visitors look delivered. But not because they were urgently brought in. During office hours this part of the hospital in Enschede is currently serving as a general practice for passers -by.

GP practice Thoen was founded last year for residents of Enschede who do not have their own general practitioner, shows practice manager Miranda Verleun on the basis of a graphic sketch. After the bankruptcy of CO-MED, it was estimated-there is no official number-ten thousand people. « Urgency! » Is written on the card with a marker, above a drawing of a large group of dolls that present the general artless population.

It depends on so many things, if there was a simple explanation we would have solved it for a long time

Enschede had been struggling with a hefty general practitioner shortage for years – one of the largest in the Netherlands. But due to the forced closure of the Commercial chain co-medal Another 8,600 people were added. That was a « very heavy damper, » says Foke Dijkstra. She is Regional Manager GP care Twente at Menzis, the health insurer with the largest market share in Enschede. Dijkstra: « But instead of losing the courage, we really put our shoulders under it. And so many new initiatives have come. »

Photos Eric Brinkhorst

Causes

How can the large general practitioner deficit be explained in Enschede? No one who has a clear answer to that. Not even the spin-in-the-web of the Twente GP care, Marieke Nijhof. In addition to being a practical general practitioner, she is chairman of Interests Group GPszorg Twente, one of the drivers of Thoen and also the founder of a new general practice, Twente origin. He will open its doors this month and will give about four thousand Enschedeos their own doctor.

Dijkstra van Menzis makes an attempt: « It depends on so many things, if there was a simple explanation we would have solved it for a long time. In other regions, the coverage of medicine training is perhaps better. Drenthe is provided by students from Groningen, Arnhem has Nijmegen, Zeeland has Rotterdam. We only have the dendance of the GPs that already come out of the Free University, but there are already aware of the Free University. »

Menzis would have preferred to see the earlier plan for a so -called ‘zero practice’ in Enschede, a general practice without patients who steadily building his patient population. But that did not get off the ground: there were no general practitioners who saw it to become a practitioner. That is a problem over the entire width of Dutch GP care: practice holders who are retiring and cannot find a successor, because starting GPs often do not like being ultimately responsible. They much prefer to grow in the profession under the wings of experienced general practitioners, without entrepreneurial risk and without long working weeks. That is why Menzis mainly sees the future for general practitioners in health centers.

People who do not have their own general practitioner can go to the GP practice Thoen.

Photo Eric Brinkhorst

Plan B

In that sense, the establishment of a passers -by practice, as Thoen is called, was plan B. to the network of Thoen, dozens of Twente GPs, including retired doctors. At times they can register for services, so that they can still see a doctor’s doctor -free Enschede.

Before Thoen, residents of Enschede had to call around whether they could go to a doctor. In addition, they came across a closed door time and time again. Certainly in the first months after the opening of Thoen, the GPs saw many people who do not speak Dutch. People who had not seen a doctor for so long that they did not come for one but for a multitude of problems.

You can learn a lot about each other in half an hour. And in that half hour you can also bind with the patient

The care of Thoen is not inferior to that of a regular general practitioner. Patients can go there by appointment, simply refer to the hospital or to mental health care. Only at Thoen they always see a different face. In addition, some patients are not registered by name. Nobody manages their patient file. Dijkstra: « If patients have been to the emergency post at night, there is no general practitioner who picks it up again during the day. »

In the long term your own general practitioner

GP Marloes van Geenen has noticed at Thoen in her time that people with psychological complaints in particular have « to put their story on the table with a strange doctor. » She mainly sees a challenge in that. « You can learn a lot about each other in half an hour. And in that that you can also bind with the patient. »

Nevertheless, the residents of Enschede must all get their own general practitioners’ in the long term, emphasizes Marieke Nijhof of GPszorg Twente. « A permanent doctor is a familiar face, offers continuity, a follow -up. I have been a general practitioner for ten years, you are really building something up with your patients. You have built up enough mutual trust to say: you don’t have to go to the specialist. If a strange doctor tells you, the idea can arise with the patient: how do you know that I know the power at all! »

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