After I transferred my general practice, I had time to volunteer at Kruispost. A gp practice that provides care to people without insurance.
A greater contrast between my old practice, with an educated and high-income population and that of Kruispost, could not be imagined. I always meet very pleasant, nice people in my practice, but I have become more aware that it is a group that generally has many opportunities to make life as pleasant as possible. Of course, with them there are also plenty of setbacks and woes, but good care can usually be arranged.
During consultations at Kruispost, I am always struck by how different this population is. On the one hand, there are many people who are very self-reliant; I try to imagine what it’s like to travel to the other side of the world and build an existence there, knowing that really you should not be there. On the other hand, these are people who do not have the ability to make demands and for whom, due to a health problem, life can instantly become very insecure. This also includes the group who have fled their own country because it is no longer safe, because of war and violence, or because your orientation is not accepted.
In the few months I’ve been consulting, I’ve seen intense medical problems. People ask for help late, partly because they are afraid of having high costs. On my first day, a man came in with a deep wound on the tibia, revealing the metal plate that once fixed a bone fracture. Also coming in was a 45-year-old woman with swelling in her chest. I could already see that it was a case of longer-standing breast cancer, for which I hardly needed to do any physical examination. It took a lot of persuasion to refer her to the hospital because she was afraid she would have to pay for the examination and treatment herself.
I have lived in Amsterdam all my life. Of course, I knew that there is a group of people living illegally, but I never realized that there is such a parallel world of people for whom life cannot be taken for granted. Ironically, it is exactly the group of people of which many look after the children, clean or renovate the houses I used to meet in my own practice.
