Kruispost has her roots in the monastic community Oudezijds 100. In the Middle Ages the area from the Rokin to the Geldersekade was teeming with monasteries. Orphans and those seeking help have traditionally found shelter at a large number of these monasteries.
Twenty years after the foundation of Oudezijds 100, the Binnengasthuis, located in the Red Light District, closed down, as did many other Amsterdam hospitals. Together they formed the AMC, which is now the Amsterdam UMC. The departure of the hospitals from the city centre led to an acute lack of primary care for people who were penniless or living illegally in the Netherlands. Flowing out of the Christian concept of mercy, Stichting Kruispost was therefore founded by Oudezijds 100: a Medical Centre where the incapacitated and undocumented could go for primary care.
Stichting Kruispost, founded in 1983, offers medical and psychosocial care to uninsured and undocumented people in Amsterdam, who cannot find help in regular care. Our doctors and caregivers provide full-fledged, professional primary care, basic dental care, and to a limited extent, secondary care. We have substantive healthcare expertise and experience with the often complex and multidimensional problems of the uninsured.
Kruispost has grown into a professional organization, where volunteer doctors, specialists and receptionists provide care to an increasing number of patients. Currently, more than 12,000 consultations are carried out annually. This development requires, on the one hand, a reorientation with regard to the original objective and forms of cooperation and, on the other hand, an organization that is in line with contemporary general practitioner care. This has led to Kruispost to continue as an independent body and no longer as part of Oudezijds 100. This makes it possible to continue the previously chosen path of further medical professionalization.
