UMCG Pediatric Heart Surgery Closure Could Seriously Affect Local Healthcare – The Northern Times

Dougblad van Het Norden The report wrote that it found that closing UMCG facilities would have “direct or indirect consequences for the provision of high-quality specialized care in the region.”

In addition to the quality of care for children, acute care for adults will be affected, the report said.

This report was commissioned by Health Minister Ernst Kuipers. unexpected announcement In December 2021, it was announced that the pediatric heart surgery facility will be concentrated in two hospitals in Rotterdam and Utrecht.

At the time, UMCG in Groningen, VUMC in Amsterdam and LUMC in Leiden were mentioned as places where complex surgeries for children with heart defects would not be performed.

petition and protest

next large petition With hundreds of thousands of signatures and a torchlit protest in Groningen, Minister Kuipers told the Dutch parliament what the outcome would be for the Groningen sector serving patients in the north and east of the Netherlands. I have notified NZa that I will ask NZa to investigate. The country was closed.

This analysis explored the impact on patients, health care professionals, and medical facilities when interventional treatments for congenital heart disease (such as cardiac catheterization and surgery) become unavailable at a particular hospital.

NZa concluded that simply focusing this kind of specialized care on children with congenital heart disease would have far-reaching implications in the Netherlands.

The report was originally scheduled to be completed by the summer of 2022, but the impact analysis was finally released on December 6th. A final decision on the future of the Dutch pediatric heart department should be made in early 2023.