The complaints of the students are generally about not being taken seriously by the General Practicioner(GP). They also claim that the Gelderse Vallei hospital asks the international students to pay high health care costs in cash. Finally, they say that the Dutch language version of the websites of the health care institutions are unclear.
Yufei Wang en Anne Walther, student council members for S&I, think the results from the survey are in line with their own observations. They already noticed that many students don’t know how the health care system works and what their rights are. ‘Students are more expensive for GP’s because of the constant flow, which in turn causes higher administration costs. For this reason the costs are partly covered by the university at the general gractice of Van der Duin-Van Dinther, who specialize in student’s health care and is located on the campus site. This gives the impression to some students that they have no other choice than to go to this practice. This is incorrect. You are free to choose which GP you want. by law, a practice can’t deny you health care. Though Walther still sees a lot of students get rejected, supposedly because the practice is at it’s maximum capacity.
Wageningen University is taking the complaints to heart. The Student Service Centre will look into whether the information on the WUR website is sufficiently clear. And on Monday 27 June, Wang and Walther met with the practice of Van der Duin and Van Dinther. It was agreed that the GPs’ practice would adapt the information on the website so that students can see where they can go with any complaints. The Student Council will also hold an annual evaluation meeting with the doctors. Students who filled in the questionnaire will receive an email from S&I as soon as Van der Duin and Van Dinther have changed their website.