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| Action urged on sexual abuse by carers, 400 cases reported |
10/7/2012 |
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Action urged on sexual abuse by carers, 400 cases reported
Sunday 07 October 2012
More than 400 patients have made formal complaints of abusing sexually abused by healthcare workers since 2007, RTL news reported at the weekend.
The figures come from the health inspectorate and only a handful of cases have ever been taken to court, RTL said. The offences range from sexually-tinted comments to ''forced sex'', the paper states.
Most of the cases (169) concern people with a mental handicap, followed by psychiatric patients (113).
Shocking
Health law professor Joep Hubben told RTL the figures are ‘shocking. ‘Of course we knew there were incidents but this is a lot higher than I had expected.’
The nature of the incidents is also more serious than thought, in particular the involvement of people with a mental handicap ‘who should be protected’, he said. All forms of sexual contact between patient and carer are banned.
Junior health minister Marlies Veldhuizen van Zanten said the figures are shocking and that she is doing all she can to stamp out the practice.
It is only recently that care workers have been required to report all suspected abuse cases. ‘It is important to remove the taboo,’ she said. ‘If we get more reports, we can stop more perpetrators.’
Household spending power fell nearly 3% in second quarter
Friday 05 October 2012
Dutch households had 2.8% less to spend between April and June than they did in the same period last year, according to new calculations by the national statistics office CBS.
This is the sharpest drop in spending power since the start of the economic crisis in 2009, the CBS said.
The main cause of the drop is rising unemployment and the fact pay rises have not kept pace with inflation. Inflation is currently running at around 2.3%.
On Thursday finance minister Jan Kees de Jager said plans to more than double the tax on insurance will also cut spending power by a further 0.25%.
Salmonella salmon also in spreads and salads
Thursday 04 October 2012
The smoked salmon from fish company Foppen which may be infected with salmonella has also been used in salads and spreads, the Dutch food safety body NVWA says on its website.
The contaminated products have been removed from supermarket shelves but the NVWA says consumers should not eat any Foppen products still in their fridges. In the Netherlands, Foppen supplies fish products to supermarket chains Albert Heijn, Plus and Aldi.
The source of the infection has not yet been traced but Foppen said earlier this week there is a large chance the infected fish comes from its Greek production line.
Some 200 people in the Netherlands and over 100 in the US have become ill after eating the salmon, which is infected by a variety of the infection known as Thompson Salmonella.
NS takes over train information services
Thursday 04 October 2012
Train information will again be supplied by Dutch railway company NS from November 1, rather than track operator ProRail, Nos television reports.
The Dutch competition authority has given the green light for the transfer of responsibility between the two state-owned operations, Nos says.
The competition body agreed the change on the condition NS does not increase the costs or change the conditions for other rail operators Connexxion, Veolia and Arriva which provide some regional and local services.
The switch has been made because of train users'' complaints about the lack of information during bad weather over several years.
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