THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE LOOKS PRETTY DARK… UNLESS WE ACT NOW
The Dutch ministry of health is worried about our future.
So much that they asked us to develop a campaign that loudly sounds the alarm: if things continue the way they are then our whole health care system will collapse in the next two decades. Many factors are involved, none of them simple. There will be more people, more of them senior citizens. Options for all kinds of treatment grow, but less and less of them can be available for everyone. And not nearly enough people working in health care.The list goes on.
To bring attention to this problem we spoke to physician Derk Runhaar about his worries about the future. But we wanted to really empower his words, describing something we cannot yet see. Not just physical situations but also his palpable sense of fear. So we envisioned “the infinite waiting room”: a stylised version of the year 2040, a dark place with a waiting room for a single doctor that goes on and on and on. Overrun with people, not just his patients but seniors suffering from dementia, people with mental disorders, patients who belong in a hospital… This is not just one doctors waiting room but our entire health care system in 2040.
This is not a simple problem. That’s why with this film we want to make a clear statement: if we go on like this, the future is bleak. But it doesn’t have to be. There is a solution, although it is not simple: customised health care. One size does not fit all. Every person is different and has different needs. Treatment that makes one person healthier can actually do damage to another. We must adapt our system to individual needs in order to make health care sustainable, affordable and manageable. We can do this, there is a plan for it and the vote is out. We must get peoples attention. We must talk about this.
