6 months Ago
The reasons behind these restraints were generally driven by overslicing and inadequate living conditions in emergency shelters. "These forty reports are just the tip of the iceberg," said Ekann's co-founder and pediatrician Marijn Baauw. " Refugee children are now slipping through the cracks."
There are currently around 16,000 children under 18 living in Dutch asylum centers, many in temporary shelters that the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate has said are unsafe and unsuitable for children.
Many Moves Interfere with Critical Care
It's common for children to be shuffled among shelters, with over 7,000 children witnessing one or more of these transfers a year. Those actions disrupt medical care, and doctors are often left in the dark about a child's whereabouts or health status.
Another young boy, who was left impoverished with little clothing was not brought to a shelter until he already had frostbite, said Dr Anne van Els, a paediatrician at Bravis Hospital. In another, a girl with a rare genetic disorder vanished from care after being removed without warning. "Only through my efforts I had to find this out," van Els said. "Not all pediatricians are able to do that. We can't always afford to do that or we don't have the time to.
Demands for a more supportive and coordinated approach
Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA) says that parents must themselves notify of any medical needs, but that staff can, if requested, door notification of the Health Care Asylum Seekers (GZA) helpline. But Ekann says that's a system that doesn't work, especially for families who don't understand the labyrinthine Dutch health care system.
"A lot of these families are traumatized and require concrete advice," Baauw said. "In certain shelters, access to care is just not set up in a good way."
Privacy rules also complicate coordination. COA says that it cannot notify doctors of the change of address directly when a child's address changes. The national Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG), responsible for local shelters, has acknowledged that it knows little about the problem.
Asylum and Migration Minister Marjolein Faber accepted there were worries but said some shelters met the standard. She also took issue with the policies on relocating, saying most children were moved less than three times.
To ease pressure on housing, Faber would like to reverse the Spreidingswet, which compels municipalities to take in asylum seekers. But for COA board member Gerard Kapteijns, the answer is a vehement no: "Relocations are the cause of all this misery. "The Spreidingswet is vital."
Ekann recommends the creation of interdisciplinary teams that manage complex cases, so hospitals and shelter care providers are more in synch.
And the backlog in the asylum application process keeps getting longer. As of October of last year, about 13,500 children are still waiting for an outcome, the IND tells us. 5,500 of those have been in limbo for more than 15 months.
