In Canada, you don’t see many doctors carrying house-call bags anymore.
But in the Netherlands, most general practitioners still make regular home visits — and they’re equipped for it. On my recent trip, I followed Dr. Suzanne Ligthart through her day, and when she opened her beautiful dark-leather doctor’s bag, I realized just how differently things are done there.
Inside? A thermometer. Ventolin. Midazolam. Even morphine.
I find this approach deeply human. GPs are just a few minutes from each patient’s home. When someone needed end-of-life care, Suzanne (and her colleagues) are ready to provide it — right there, where they live.
👉 In Part 2 of our Netherlands 🇳🇱 series on Primary Focus, we are talking about home visits — and how caring for patients at home is emotional and essential.
In this episode, we also meet Kris Arts, a practice assistant in the clinic — a uniquely Dutch position that might just be the secret sauce of their primary care system.
Practice assistants in the Netherlands don’t just answer phones. They use their training to:
📞 Triage every call making sure patients are seen by the right person, at the right time, in the right place
💬 Counsel patients and resolve issues if appropriate
💉 Give immunizations and do pap tests
🩺 See patients 1:1 in clinic for simple procedures
⚖️ Help GPs manage their time by taking work off their plates
And they’re trained to do all of this — with an emphasis not only on clinical protocols, but also on how to build trust, de-escalate tension, and reassure patients in distress.
As always, the Dutch system isn’t perfect — and this episode explores that, too. But there’s something about the way they’ve built trust into their teams, clarity into their roles, and simplicity into their systems that’s stayed with me.
And I can’t help but wonder:
Can we adapt their unique model of teamwork to our setting in Canada?
Keep up with our Netherlands mini-series:
📦 If you missed last week’s Part 1, we land in the Netherlands and step inside a primary care clinic in Nijmegen. You’ll meet Dr. Tim Olde Hartman and Dr. Suzanne Ligthart, two GPs who walk me through what makes their model so different — from team structure to culture, and why everyone seems to have a family doctor.
🏢 In two weeks’ time we will bring you Part 3, where tour after-hours clinics in Nijmegen and Amsterdam to hear how Dutch GPs provide 24/7 care — and why it actually works. Coming soon!
🗒️ Then in Part 4, I sit down with Rosemary Hannam — who joined me on the trip just before becoming Strategic Advisor on Primary Care at Ontario Health — to talk about governance, accountability and the customer-orientation of the Dutch system. We’ll also reflect on what Canada can learn from the Netherlands, and how we might make change happen here at home. Coming soon!
I can’t wait for you to hear this series.
Warmly,
Tara
Dr. Tara Kiran
Host, Primary Focus
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