Support for long Covid patients and those suffering from chronic Q fever is to end in December, two years earlier than planned, the government has confirmed.
Ministers at last week’s cabinet meeting agreed to cut funding for C-support and Q-support, a network providing long-term care to around 35,000 patients, at the end of the year.
The health ministry said in September it wanted to phase out the €8 million a year funding for the network over three years, but last week’s decision means its budget will be cut by 80% at a stroke.
The remaining funding will be used to maintain the expertise centre for health professionals.
Sophie Querido, director of C-support, told AD.nl that the decision was potentially devastating news for patients. “They are being passed from pillar to post,” she said. “The light is fading from their lives.”
She said that Q-support was always intended to be a temporary organisation, but the abrupt halt to funding would leave patients with nowhere to turn to. “What makes it worse is these illnesses are not regarded as chronic, which makes it difficult to fund treatment through health insurance,” she said.
She added that the decision to end individual care would also have an impact on the centre’s research capabilities. “We think that developing expertise goes hand in hand with knowing what is going on with patients. Soon we won’t be able to do that.”
Some 450,000 people in the Netherlands are estimated to have long Covid symptoms, a quarter of whom are severely affected.
Q fever is an disease transmitted from farm animals that was the subject of an outbreak in the Netherlands between 2007 and 2011, which was eventually traced to dairy goat farms. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people fell ill and at least 74 died as a result.
Some 600 people in the Netherlands have chronic Q fever, but up to 1,400 more may have contracted the illness but have not yet shown symptoms. Long-term effects include inflammation of heart valves and blood vessels.
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