Healthcare in the Netherlands

Healthcare in the Netherlands is based on 160 primary care centres, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some of them are on hospital sites. To use hospital services most people need to be sent by a GP. The vast majority of GPs and all the pharmacies and hospitals use electronic health records.

There are about 90 hospital organisations in the Netherlands. Some of them have more than one actual physical hospital. They are mostly privately run non-profit foundations.

Everybody has to have health insurance. There are 1400 different insurance packages. The price is not allowed to be related to health status or age. There are two kinds:

• Zorgverzekeringswet (Zvw), often called "basic insurance', covers common medical care.
• Wet langdurige zorg (Wlz) covers long-term nursing and care.

For short-term health care the cost is met 50% from employers, 45% from the insured person and 5% by the government. People under 18 are free. Although there is help with the cost from the government poorer people can often end up paying between 20-25% of their income in healthcare costs.

Healthcare In The Netherlands Media

• 

  Charlotte Martinot, former opera singer is transferred to the Boerhaave clinic from her nursing home which was under renovation

• 

  A patient is transported in to an ambulance in Amsterdam, 26 September 1980

• 

  112 (emergency telephone number)

• 

  West Frisian Hospital in Hoorn, the Netherlands

• 

  Total health spending as a percentage of GDP for the Netherlands compared with several other European nations from 2005 to 2008

• 

  Life expectancy development in the Netherlands by gender

• 

  Patients rights demonstration against co-pays increasing under the AWBZ, 1982