Medical facilities

introductionWe live in the region Castricum. That is 36 km from Amsterdam. Castricum is close to the sea and the dunes.

There is a train station and the closest hospital is in Alkmaar. In this PowerPoint we show and tell you some

things about the medical facilities in Castricum. We also had an interview with an ex-nurse which was very interesting.

Map of castricum

Everthing between the red line is the municipality of castricum, but

Castricum itself is just a little village. There are 3 other villages in the municipality of Castricum: Limmen, Akersloot and Bakkum.

Castricum itself is the biggest one. You don’t have a hospital in

Castricum but you do have a general practitioner.

The main question 

The main question is: how well do the medical facilities meet the needs of the people in your region?  

The answer: 

Very well because we have a family doctor close by mostly 5 or 10 kilometres. We have medical care for all ages. We have doctors that are specialised in different things like dentists. We also have that when your young that you need to have a injection but for that you don’t need to go to the hospital but there are places close by where you can

go in your own village. If there is a case of emergency we have a special phone number: 112. If you call that you will get a person who asks what happened and they

will send police, ambulance or the fire brigade. For the older people we have a convalescent home, that’s a place where elderly people can go if they can’t live in

their own house because of medical problems.

Various types of medical facilities

In Castricum you have various types of medical facilities. You don’t have a hospital in Castricum, so for that you have to go to Alkmaar. Alkmaar

is a city close to Castricum. But like I said there are various types of medical facilities. You have general practices for example, you can go here and they can send you to the hospital when it’s needed. But you

also have first aid in Castricum. You have this for example on the beach. When you hurt yourself or something else happened which you need help for you can go here and they will help you. Also when there are

events there is a first aid who can help you when something happened to you. But for specialised help in a particular thing you have to go to Alkmaar or Amsterdam for example, because in Castricum you can’t

find this.

Medical assistanceIn Castricum there isn’t a hospital so if you need to go to a hospital you should go to Alkmaar, a city close to Castricum. You can come there day

and night 24/7. But if you can’t go to Alkmaar, you can also go to the general practitioner in Castricum. There are several general

practitioners in Castricum, 5 actually. But all those aren’t 24/7 available, you can always look at their website but if you need a doctor in night you should go to Alkmaar were you can always come. Most of

them are op between 6:00 and 7:30 and till 20:00 every day.

Interview with an ex-nurseWe had an interview with Marlène's mother, an

ex- nurse. I hope you enjoy it!

 

At what age did you started studying at medical school?

I started medical school at the age of 18.

 

For how long have you studied there?

I have studied for four years, the first two years were only theory, so I had for example pathology, biology, chemistry, also practise: I had to practise on other students how to make a bandage, and, when somebody breaks his arm, how to make a sling, things like

that. The other two years we had to go to different areas of nursing, and work there for a couple of months to get used to the

work and to learn.

 

Where did you work, as a nurse?

In different fields, I started in a psychiatric hospital, and I did that for a year and then I got married to my husband and we went

abroad, so then not work, but when I came back I started to work as a baby nurse, after that I went to people’s houses to take care

of them, if they needed caring.

 

At what age did you become a 'real' nurse?

Well, I had medical school at the age of 18, and for four years, so I became a nurse when I was twenty two.

 

For how long have you been a nurse?

Well, maybe all together for like ten years.

 

Still the interview with an ex-nurseWhat interests you about working as a nurse?

I think that the most interesting part of it is that you see many different people, I have been working allot in Amsterdam and you

have so many different cultures there, so I have been in houses from people from India to Morocco to Suriname, African people, it was very interesting to get to know their culture, etc. You also get very close to people so you can talk about their problems, fix their problems, it feels

good that you could be there for them if they need you.

 

How would you deal with a doctor being rude?

Well, I have had one when I was still studying and it was really difficult to say anything about it but I told that to one person who guided me, and she was going to talk with him, but later on when I finished my

study I think I did not really met allot of rude doctors but when I would I would ask him to talk with me someday and then I would say how I experienced him being rude, and ask if he could be a little less rude.

 

How would you handle a patient who complains about everything?

Well, there are some of those... I actually do not really mind very quickly, and I think that if they complain that fast that they are not

very happy,

and then I would try to figure out why they are not happy, and to see if they can find solutions for their problems (and complains) and to see

if I could help with that.

 

What did you find difficult about being a nurse?

I did not like to give shots to children, I was scared I would not do that right, and I actually also had that with other things; I was scared to hurt a client; the responsibility was big. It was also very difficult to

handle a young kid that was very sick; that was not nice.

 

Why did you quit your job as a nurse?

When we moved to Castricum I decided to go in another direction; get some different education, because I did allot of carring work, also

having four children I wanted to do something else.

Specialized treatments

This part is about the hospitals with specialized treatments. We have in Beverwijk (a city close to the area where we live) a hospital which is specialized for people with burns. That hospital is called “Het rode kruis”.

Dutch Burn Centre Beverwijk

The Burn Center at the Red Cross Hospital in Beverwijk, Holland, is internationally known as the 'Dutch Burn Center Beverwijk'. This department of the hospital provides high-quality clinical care in the field of burns

treatment. High-quality clinical care is extremely specialized care, which requires particular expertise and often special facilities, too. Beverwijk is known both at home and abroad as the place for (inter)nationally highly rated

burn injuries care. The Burn Centre treats both people with serious burn injuries and also, because of their expertise in the field of scar treatment, those with other serious wounds.The treatment of burn injuries requires a

multidisciplinary approach: specialists from different disciplines work together to provide the best possible care and treatment.

We also have in Amsterdam (the capital city of Holland) a hospital which is specialized for cancer patients. That hospital is called “Antoni van Leeuwenhoek”, also called “Dutch cancer institute”.

“Cancer is a difficult disease. In the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital are the doctors specialized in research and treatments of special kinds of cancer. They work a lot with chemotherapy.”

“Chemotherapy is a treatment with substances we call cytostatics or chemotherapeutic drugs. These means they kill cancer cells or stop the growth of cancer cells. There are many different cytotoxic drugs, each attack the

cancer cell in a different way. The main point of most cytostatics is cell division.”

Comparing to other groups

When we compare to what we did to the other schools we think we could have used more pictures. But when we look to information we

wrote down we think we did a great job. Our information is detailed and we used good information. The research we did was good we think, and

you can see this in the results we reached.

conclusion

The EUmind project was a very long project but it was fun and we learned a lot about medical facilities not only here in Castricum but also in other countries and other parts of the Netherlands. It was very fun to have a video conference with the other groups in India because we saw how it is there, we also learned to work with each other and divide the

work equally between everybody.