Broken Bones & Dutch Healthcare

 

It seems inevitable that we would have a medical emergency while living here resulting in a test of the Dutch healthcare system. The image above accurately reflects the perception and often reality of the healthcare here. We have been lucky so far with getting the care we need by 1) being prepared with medical records from the US to prove our case, 2) researching and advocating for ourselves and 3) annoying the huisart (primary care doctor) enough that she gives us what we want so we stop asking. 😝

During recess at school, Sam fell while playing a game with his friends and another friend fell on top of him. I was told that he initially wanted to keep playing but the teachers had him go to the nurse, who then sent him back to class. His teacher reached out to me since it seemed like he was in pain and I picked him up.  I spoke to the nurse when I picked him up who said he seemed fine and to monitor him.

Fast forward to us realizing he was not fine. We called the huisart (a requirement here before going to the emergency room - a strategy to reduce unnecessary ER traffic) and they asked us to take him to their office. The huisart thought his collarbone was broken and referred us to the hospital for an x-ray. Then we Ubered to the hospital and the radiology department was closed (at 4:15pm! 😝) so we were sent to the ER for x-rays.  

The triage nurse thought it was a dislocated shoulder and they would have to put it back in place and "maybe" they would give him painkillers for that (WTF!!). That put me over the edge!  There is no way I could handle watching someone do this to my kid (I am very squeamish about body stuff to begin with).  The x-ray showed it was actually a broken collarbone as initially suspected and it was a pretty bad break but no need for the shoulder reattachment procedure. There was discussion of surgery but we were contacted by a surgeon the next day who indicated no surgery was needed and it would heal in about 4 weeks. 

The experience did somewhat play out like the image above suggests - prescribing paracetamol (Tylenol) and no real plan for follow up except an appointment with the surgeon about 9 weeks out (which seems too long!).  There were no written instructions about pain medication management and we had to pursue physical therapy on our own.

However, in researching this type of injury it does seem that it just takes time to heal so in the end I think it was a success because we got the care we needed, even if it was a bit delayed due to having to go through the huisart first.  In summary, we got through it and hopefully that will be the end of our urgent care needs.