RNW Press Review – 25 January 2008 - by David Doherty

The Dutch army found itself battling a new enemy yesterday in the east of the Netherlands. "Soldiers in action against resistant bacteria" is the headline in AD, which features a front-page photo of servicemen and women in full camouflage gear setting up an emergency intensive care facility in a hospital car park in the province of Twente.

Two intensive care patients at the hospital were found to be infected with the rare Acinetobacter baumannii bacteria, which - like the more common hospital bug MSRA - is resistant to most antibiotics. The two are now in isolation and a sign reading "do not enter unless absolutely necessary" has been slapped on the rest of the ward.

The 14 patients currently on the ward will stay put. "We can only start disinfecting when the last patient has been discharged ... which could take up to three months depending on their condition," explained a hospital spokesman.

New intensive care patients will go to the military containers in the car park. AD reports that "there is a similar intensive care unit at the Dutch military camp in Afghanistan". "So we've got the experience to get everything set up quickly," adds one of the soldiers with a wink.

Starting young
Trouw leads with an appeal to start informing people at an early age about the importance of becoming organ donors. It quotes the professor behind the appeal, Robert Porte, as saying "that's the way to raise a generation for whom donation is no longer a taboo".

His appeal comes ahead of a health-ministry master plan due in March which aims to tackle the shortage of donors in the Netherlands. "If you ask the Dutch if they are in favour of organ transplants, 80 per cent say yes. But when a family is in mourning ... 70 per cent refuse to cooperate."

Last year parliament rejected a move to have all Dutch citizens automatically registered as donors unless they objected. "That means we have to do everything by informing people," explains the professor. "It may not be possible to convince the older generation, so we need to start in schools. Kids need to learn that donating their organs is a perfectly normal thing to do, and that there's no need to be afraid."

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