Abstract
The announcement of the appointment of Hugo de Jonge as the Netherlands Secretary of State for Health means that there is little chance of having a 'specialist' in this post in the near future. Els Borst-Eilers is generally considered to have been the last specialist Secretary of State for Health in the Netherlands. Whether or not she can rightly be considered to be a specialist, this was certainly the image that she cultivated and also used for political ends, for instance, to depoliticise sensitive issues. In this article, we highlight a particularly good example: the medical experiment involving providing approximately 700 long-term addicts with heroin under medical supervision, which Borst implemented with the consent of the Netherlands parliament in 1998.
Translated title of the contribution | The last specialist secretary of state in the Netherlands: Els Borst-Eilers |
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Original language | Dutch |
Article number | D1888 |
Journal | Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde |
Volume | 161 |
Issue number | 51 |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Keywords
- English Abstract