Former health minister: Netherlands was ill-prepared for pandemic before Covid-19

The Netherlands would have prevented “a lot of trouble” during the Covid-19 pandemic if they had been better prepared for a crisis or pandemic, healthcare executive Ernst Kuipers told the Dutch parliamentary inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kuipers stated that better preparations would have prevented a shortage of medicine, medical supplies, and breathing apparatus. Hospitals were able to redistribute critically ill coronavirus patients throughout the pandemic, meaning the Netherlands never had to resort to the “code black” scenario. However, it came close, Kuipers said.

“The highest peak was after the first wave,” Kuipers said. In early April 2020, just weeks after the government introduced the first major lockdown, the healthcare system was already “really on the brink” of reaching what Kuipers refers to as phase 3. In healthcare, the term refers to a crisis in which all intensive care beds are occupied, and there is no room left for critically ill patients. Doctors and other healthcare workers are then forced to decide which patients receive a bed and which do not.

After becoming Minister of Public Health in 2022, after the pandemic, Kuipers began developing a pandemic preparedness plan. “Looking back, I am not very happy with the name. It should have been called crisis preparedness.” Kuipers made several concrete steps to improve cooperation and detection and spent 300 million euros on the plan. The next Cabinet, led by Dick Schoof, scrapped the budget.

The current Cabinet spent 177 million euros on pandemic preparedness. These disruptions have led to the development not being as advanced as hoped. “It was halted for a while, and it is now a work in progress,” Kuipers said.

Kuipers also criticized the way the government communicated during the pandemic. The former minister was the chairman of the National Network for Acute Care at the time and objected to the idea that the coronavirus restrictions were primarily about protecting the healthcare system. “Healthcare is always under pressure, whether you’re treating a coronavirus patient or someone else. You do it for one another.”

He felt the ministers and ministries should have advised more on the coronavirus vaccinations, and that it did not have to be so forceful. “The ministry should have made the most information available for everyone, and the minister is allowed to issue advice, but vaccination should be a personal choice. And whatever your choice is, it does not make you any less of a citizen, friend, or relative.”

Despite the criticism, Kuipers dismissed claims that the government’s method of communication caused division within society. “What if no measures had been taken, would there have been more or less polarization? I think more.” Kuipers also praised the government’s timing for the first lockdown. “The lockdown could not wait a few days,” he said. Describing it as a “brave and courageous decision that was taken at exactly the right moment.”

After taking over as minister, Kuipers called former colleagues at hospitals in Berlin, Paris, and London for advice on the omicron variant of the coronavirus, which was starting to emerge in the Netherlands.

He was told in the talks that the variant had significantly milder symptoms than previous variants. He used the information to convince the Cabinet that the easing of restrictions was possible.

Kuipers emphasized that the pandemic had advanced to “a different phase” because many people had “built up a form of immunity, due to vaccinations or getting infected.”