NMa instructs Dutch hospital to comply with merger condition

The Intensive Care unit of the Admiraal de Ruyter Hospital (ADRZ) in the southern Dutch province of Zeeland has not yet reached the level that the Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa) had set in its condition attached to the 2009 merger into ADRZ. In consultation with the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate (IGZ), the NMa instructed ADRZ to realize the agreed upon level by the end of the year.

ADRZ was created through a merger between Walcheren Hospital and Oosterschelde Hospitals. An expansion of the current IC unit to ‘level II’ was one of the conditions the NMa had imposed for clearing the merger in 2009, which was in part based on recommendations of the IGZ. Said conditions were imposed in order to guarantee the quality of hospital care in Zeeland in the future.

Since 2009, ADRZ has taken various steps to get its IC unit to the required level. Its brand new location is level II-ready, the necessary medical equipment has been acquired, and the consolidation of the two previous IC units has been completed. The main obstacle is recruitment of enough IC specialists to staff the IC unit. The market for this category of medical specialists is extremely tight at the moment. ADRZ has not yet succeeded in hiring the required number of five specialists (in FTE). It expects to reach that target by the end of this year. Meanwhile, patients suffering from more complicated traumas or other medical conditions are transferred to hospitals in Antwerp or Rotterdam.