professionals judge their colleagues,
Talking about this quality of health care, you might think that in the Netherlands we live in heaven, where health care is concerned. So the question arises: are there no problems?
Screen 19 (introduction: some problems/some solutions)
This last part of the introduction is dedicated to an overview of some problems we meet and of some ways in which solutions for these problems are sought. As I stated before, health care is a matter of policy. And policy is about making choices. The first choice is: how much is spent on health care in the first place? The second choice concerns the division of the money between the different sectors of health care. As for the first question: there are two main reasons why health care is under strain. The first reason is the fact that technological developments extend the possibilities of treating diseases. The equipment that is used becomes more and more sophisticated. But it also becomes more expensive. The second reason is partly a result of the good quality in health care. People become older but also, with the aging, they become sicker. This means that more people make an appeal to health care. Both developments put a pressure on health care resources. As we have seen the Netherlands are somewhere in the middle where it concerns the money that is spent on health care. The question is: should it be more?
Another question is whether the available money can be divided in a different way. In some sectors the problems seem bigger than in other areas. On the whole, within health care the strain on the resources has several consequences. (Klik) One of the most conspicuous of these concequences are the waiting lists. These waiting lists prevail in the context of hospital care, for instance for an appointment at the outpatient department or for open heart surgery. But also
