Chairman AMC: Netherlands has too many hospitals

So says the chairman of the AMC, Marcel Levi, in an interview with Het Parool [+] . Nearly all hospitals, even the smaller ones, still offer 24-hour care and obstetrics, and emergency assistance. Levi believes that inefficient and unnecessarily expensive.

"Why the Slotervaart Hospital has an emergency? Five minutes one way you can go to the OLVG West and five minutes in the other direction denotes at the VU University Medical Center. If something really is quite expensive, it is the emergency room."

Levi thinks that Amsterdam has plenty to an emergency room and acute ward at the VU University Medical Center, the AMC and the OLVG with its two locations. The other hospitals - the Slotervaart, BovenIJ and Amstelland Amstelveen - could be a clinic, an outpatient basis or a GP-plus', where the patient is escorted for chronic conditions and where he can get minor surgery or outpatient care.

"If you close a hospital, patients must sometimes tens of kilometers away. There is a dramatic intolerance 'ten kilometers away in Netherlands'

Thigh Fractures and stare
Small hospitals in the city have already deployed away, says Levi. "Slotervaart and Amstelveen stop deliveries and clinical care of children but also in BovenIJ and Slotervaart see that they no longer do some complicated things and some things they were good at, but for example Slotervaart presents itself very strong stomach reductions.. - fantastic anyway. "

Levi believes that there is a lot of nonsense care, including the AMC, and predicts that ten percent can be removed without the patient suffer from being there. "The money we need growth in healthcare demand to absorb the coming years."

AMC and VUmc are increasingly focusing on the complex care. Simple interventions on cataract, inguinal hernias and varicose veins are not done in the hospital. "That's us not patient friendly, because a cancer patient or a victim of a serious accident always comes first, it is not efficient:.. Awfully expensive stuff and super highly trained staff committed to simple things It is like a cheese sandwich in a serving three-star. "

Freedom of choice
Levi turns up with his assertion that hospitals you can close a delicate and sensitive debate on which insurers years ago already argued. Insurers thereby encountered heavy resistance. "If you close hospitals, patients have to drive ten kilometers to go down town to a hospital. And there is a dramatic intolerance 'ten kilometers away in the Netherlands."

Amsterdam and Amstelveen count together seven hospitals, according to Ad Warnar of advocacy Clientenbelang Amsterdam 'unimaginable'. But he wants to stress that the elimination of hospitals also for patients is very drastic. Also, what will decrease by deleting hospitals choice.

"I know that among residents in northern many fear that their BovenIJ Hospital disappears People need to have confidence that they do are in the right hospital in time in an emergency:. North is OLVG or Zaans Medical Centre Marcel Levi. says it can, I do not know. "

 http://www.parool.nl/ BY: MALIKA SEVIL Photo: Reuters