You may have seen a few posts on FaceBook recently from me about some big changes to the care situation here in the Netherlands. It will be difficult to explain it all, but I am hoping you might all be able to support us a little.

Some of you might recall that one of the things I said was good about being in the Netherlands was for the level of home care. In a nutshell, due to government cutbacks like everywhere, they are changing many things.

Some of these changes are needed, but unfortunately, for some of them they are extreme, rather than addressing the fundamental problems, e.g. “Throwing out the baby with the bath water”. It would be difficult to explain all of the details of this, but I’ll be happy to try to explain more if you are interested.

In summary, the real problem has to do with the care that our care giver provides for Rob for the past 3½ years. The agency that she works for is cancelling her contract and trying to deny us the right to hire her independently (via non-compete clauses) and trying to deny her the right for the benefits she has earned. They are doing this so that they can hire her back, which they will give no guarantees about, and also under what terms and conditions.

They are doing this in the name of the government cutbacks, but none of the cutbacks are relevant to the care that our care giver provides to Rob. In other words, they are using a loophole to save money, at the cost to both Rob and our care giver. They are also more-or-less a monopoly in our area, so we don’t have a lot of choices. This also has implications for me and my ability to be able to work. Our care giver is our “angel” and we could not get by without her.

This is causing Rob a lot of stress, and I am sure our care giver also. We think we have found ways to work around it, but that will be yet more challenges and potentially a legal battle that we really don’t want.

So how can you support us? I’m not really sure. One thing you can do is let both Rob and our care giver know that you support them by commenting on this post. For me, probably the best support is to be able to handle my ramblings about this — it’s really a challenge that we had not for seen.

You can also go sign this peition against our local care agency: Thuiszorgmedewerkers Omring (West-Friesland) gaan actievoeren tegen bezuinigingen. It is in Dutch, but you don’t need to login or anything — only your name, e-mail, and remarks. Where it says “opmerking” (remarks) just fill-in “tegen loondumping”, which more or less translates to “against payroll dumping”.

Thanks for letting me share this with you.
El

P.S. The image in this post “Listen to the MUSTN’TS” by Shel Silverstein, is from a few years ago when Rob was going through so many challenges. Although I knew we would have adversity ahead of us, I never would have thought to expect this kind of adversity.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” ~Shel Silverstein