Image editing by Djanlissa Pringels
–
IC doctor Armand Girbes registered last weekend this podcast something that strikes him about the corona patients who are now in his hospital: they are “mainly people with a non-Western background who do not speak the language completely.” It is an impression, he says himself, and he immediately warns against thinking in boxes as a result of his statement. But Geert Wilders would not be Wilders if he did not immediately get this information: he tweeted that “Mohammed and Fatima” are occupying the IC beds because they “don’t care about the rules.”
A terribly inflammatory and totally misplaced tweet, which has nothing to do with reality. In fact, on behalf of the RIVM examined to what extent the measures are complied with by people with a migrant background. Pharos, the national center of expertise that investigates health inequalities in the Netherlands and thus wants to reduce it, concluded that people with a migration background adhere to the rules just as well (and sometimes even more strictly) as people without a migration background.
However, access to healthcare in the Netherlands is not the same for everyone. I called Pharos director Patricia Heijdenrijk to ask what she thought of Wilders’ tweet and what she hopes for the upcoming press conference.
VICE: Hi Patricia, new measures are coming up. How do you think the press conferences have been so far?
Patricia Heijdenrijk: It is nice that the sign language interpreter is there, but the language used is still too complicated. The last press conference is in afterwards Understandable language published on the website of the national government, which is already a huge improvement compared to six months ago. Back then we could only read the literal text, with difficult words like ‘contamination rate’ and ‘reproduction numbers’. We now know all about it, but those are very difficult words for many people.
For whom exactly?
There are 2.5 million people in the Netherlands who have difficulty reading and writing, and half of them are native Dutch; that is certainly not only about people with a migration background. 36 percent of the Dutch have ‘limited health skills’, which means that a third of our population has difficulty with information about health, a healthy lifestyle, use of medicines and treatments.
And a solution for this lies in simpler language?
Yes, it starts at the front. Dutch health care is quite complicated, especially for people who have difficulty absorbing information, understanding and applying it. Now if you are referred to the hospital, you have to register online, you will receive a text message, forward telephone numbers – finding access to the care you need in the first place is difficult.
But that is about education level and not about ethnic background?
Indeed, about training. But we mainly speak of ‘socio-economic status’. This concerns people who are financially less well off, and who therefore live in a disadvantaged neighborhood, for example. So the living environment plays a role, and that is often linked to a lower education.
Were you surprised what IC doctor Girbes said in the podcast? Did you think his statements were unwise?
It is twofold: on the one hand, I think it’s good that he says it – it’s something we’ve seen in other countries for some time now. End up in the US more black people in hospital due to corona. But it is very unfortunate that it is framed by Wilders to ‘people with a migration background who would not comply with the rules’. Because in fact it concerns people from disadvantaged neighborhoods, and there are factors other than a migration background.
Often these are people who are small in housing and have practical professions that prevent them from working from home. 60 percent of the highly educated can work from home, compared to 9 percent of the less educated. And people who cannot work from home are more likely to get infected, especially if they have to travel by public transport. People with a lower socio-economic status are also more often confronted with poverty problems, which are about stress and financial worries. And so it is a vicious circle: stress makes you more likely to develop chronic conditions, and so these people have a greater risk of ending up in the ICU with a corona infection. So it is more of a socio-economic issue than it is about a migration background.
How do you help these people, now in corona time?
We work with language ambassadors. They ‘re-translate’ the difficult words by simply explaining what it is about. We have also ‘retranslated’ the corona measures with illustrations and simple pictures and sentences. Healthcare professionals in the Netherlands made great use of this, for example with posters that you can hang. We have also translated the measures and agreements into 13 languages for people who do not speak Dutch.
What else can you, or the government, do in the coming months? It looks like it will all take a while.
If you now see that there are more infections among certain groups, such as among students and young people, and therefore perhaps also among people with a migration background, then I think: perhaps we should have focused on separate information for different target groups. Until now there has been too much general communication, then people think: this is not about me. We now see that there are differences, but we are not adjusting communication accordingly. That is a learning point for the coming period. Soon there will also be the vaccination story: let’s think about that now, for God’s sake, who we want to reach in which way. The pandemic took us a little bit, but we all know those vaccinations are coming; if you already start with the preparations, you can adjust your communication accordingly.
Do you have a wish or tip for tonight’s press conference?
Also keep offering hope and perspective. But that’s important to all of us.
