Catherine Politis feels “exhausted” and “corona sick”. The general practitioner from Heusden-Zolder raises the alarm in the Artsenkrant. She points an accusing finger at the government, which continues to pass on too many tasks to the GP. “We are October and nothing has changed. Nothing has been finalized in seven months, ”she writes. She also complains that she currently does not have the time and energy to help the many patients with mental health problems in her practice.
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Politis is not tender to the government. She thinks this has put far too much pressure on the shoulders of GPs, while she herself avoided her responsibilities. “We don’t know where the sources of infection are, the contact tracers are still not working optimally, we have an app that nobody has and that doesn’t work and we don’t have enough test material to continue testing. Moreover: where is all that data, and why is no one doing anything with it? ”
And that had been the case from the start of the pandemic outbreak, Politis sighs Doctors newspaper. “We received help through patients. Some even sewed masks for us. We got nothing from the government, just zero. ‘Sorry, they were destroyed’. ” Another example: the triage centers. “Which we GPs also had to set up and staff ourselves. There was no initiative from the government. ‘Sorry, make your plan and pay for it yourself’. ”
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‘Call your doctor’
Politis calls communication to the population “downright substandard”. “No letters, no flyers, no infomercials, nothing!” Politis is also annoyed by our contact tracing system. “Contact tracers were being groomed to call the Covid positives. But for weeks they watched Netflix. And you can guess three times who did take on this task. With the accompanying certificates, each time with the same explanation. ” Not to mention the corona app. “How many people even know that that app exists?”
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And then there is the call that Politis takes offense: “Stay in your room, and you have questions: call your doctor.” The government has continued to do that, Politis believes. “’Call your doctor’ is the only thing you hear everywhere. Yes, government, say just a few more times: ‘Just call your doctor’, but if it continues in this way, no one will answer. ”
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Health problems due to high pressure
In Het Journaal, Politis talked about people who postpone their visit to the doctor today due to the corona pandemic. Even patients with “a cancer that is not yet advanced and that can normally be treated or excised, but now chemotherapy or radiotherapy may have to be started”.
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Not only does the corona crisis mean that she sees many patients with psychological problems in her waiting room, the doctors themselves are also experiencing health problems due to the high workload. “Colleagues have already stopped working because they are in a burnout; people who would normally retire next year are already doing so now; doctors, who are also people, are completely quenched. ”
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Also read: Situation in hospitals is becoming untenable: “The government is taking serious risks. The measures are completely inadequate ” (+)
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