“It is the biggest reform in Dutch healthcare since 1963” says Bernadet Naber, spokeswoman at Actiz, the association which represents the Dutch nursing home sector. A new so-called WMO law, discussed in parliament this week, would give domiciliary care and day centres to local government, put medicalised homecare in the hands of the healthcare insurers and lead to a massive reduction in beds in the Dutch nursing home sector, as length of stay drops from over 2 years to closer to one year.
April 23, 2014