GPs and community care can only provide 'most urgent care'

GPs and district nurses can only provide "most urgent care". The main reasons are the increasing demand for care at home and the large number of caregivers sitting at home due to illness or quarantine.

So write the Landelijke Huisartsen Vereniging (LHV), professional association Verpleegkundigen & Verzorgenden Nederland (V&VN) and industry association for elderly care ActiZ on Friday in a joint message.

There is also increasing pressure on GPs and district nurses as fewer and fewer people can be admitted to hospitals and nursing homes. These are in fact full of corona patients.

According to the care organisations, caregivers are making every effort to continue to provide much-needed care properly. "This is only possible if we postpone some of the normal care, do not provide it or provide it less intensively."

This is because healthcare is a cohesive whole, the organisations explain. If the hospitals are full, it directly affects the crowding in GP care, district nursing and nursing homes. At regional level, they work together to ensure that key care can continue.

GPs urge people to keep reporting with urgent complaints, but longer waiting times should be taken into account in all other cases. The organisations are asking people for understanding. "We will have to go through this together," said LHV president Mirjam van 't Veld.

Source: NU.co.uk