'Embassies busier with confused Dutch people abroad'
The Dutch embassies are increasingly busy with confused compatriots abroad. In the past ten years, the demand for help from tourists with psychological problems has doubled. At least sixty times a year holidaymakers are flown back to the Netherlands under supervision after consular mediation and assistance. Via the emergency centers there are also about 500 cases that have to be repatriated because of their mental condition.
This is what Tessa Martens, cluster head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says in de Volkskrant on Tuesday. There are various situations in which tourists go crazy during their holiday: from a Dutch backpacker who gets lost, to someone who was naked directing traffic in a busy city. The cause of this increase is not known, but it is likely that traveling has become much easier, flights can be booked in no time with the internet.
According to Martens, Foreign Affairs is engaged by both local authorities and patients themselves, who also turn to the embassy for this. This mainly happens if a traveler does not have travel insurance and unfortunately that is increasingly the case.
Subsequently, it is examined how the return journey can be financed. The family has to pay for that. The ministry never pays the costs.
Read the full article on the Volkskrant website: www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/steeds-meer-verwarde-nederlanders-in-het-buitenland
Why isn't travel insurance simply mandatory when purchasing a ticket?
Doesn't seem convenient to me with continuous travel insurance and frequent business travel.
Those who want to burn their buttocks must take blisters into account!!! And preferably large.
That's easy to say if you're in your right mind. But more and more often people who do not or hardly make it in our own country with a hazy dream image go to faraway places with the idea that everything is different and better there. They are actually already confused in advance. As long as they can throw money around them, they are welcomed with open arms and everyone is a true friend. But woe betide when it is gone … Then Thailand is also mercilessly hard and leaves them to their fate. Or they can perish in the deportation center in Bangkok until someone arranges a ticket for them.
It can happen to all of us. Just hope that there is a good guy nearby who will come and save you from the big blisters …
Travel insurance does not cover pre-existing conditions in the future. Not a solution for the mentally ill. Or its repatriation.
That does not work. Then you have to check with every purchase whether someone already has (continuous) travel insurance, you have people who travel for business and are insured by the employer, you have people who have enough money to travel uninsured.
And of course the insurance companies also have to make money from it.
It would then be much more practical and cheaper to have the costs paid by the already existing compulsory health insurance in the event of such calamities. Those few hundred cases per year is of course peanuts.
It is only to be feared that there will suddenly be many more such calamities.
Abuse is imminent.
So it will stay as it is and there is something to be said for that.
In the Netherlands too, it seems as if there is constant growth in the number of confused people in public spaces. Statistically speaking, it is therefore not surprising that more and more holidaymakers are losing sight of reality abroad. The fact that, as stated in the article in the Volkskrant, more people go on holiday alone will also be a cause. In my opinion, the fact that (continuous) travel insurance is taken out less often is not a good development. It may be thought that necessary medical assistance abroad is covered by Dutch basic insurance (the reimbursement of which can cause unpleasant surprises) and people forget that repatriation is not covered by this.