In late March, ICMIF member Achmea (Netherlands) announced that it would grant voluntary and paid leave to employees of the cooperative insurer who had previously worked in the healthcare sector to allow them to support the Dutch healthcare system during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Achmea employees that are registered with the Dutch healthcare professionals register (BIG-register) – or have a recently expired BIG-registration – may, on a voluntary basis, be exempt from their normal duties at the insurer, whilst retaining their salary. With this gesture, Achmea wants to contribute to the relief of workload for healthcare professionals who are busy treating patients with Coronavirus.
Every day, the Netherlands is seeing an increase in the number of patients infected with the Coronavirus. As a result, the pressures on the healthcare sector are increasing enormously and extra staff is urgently needed. Exceptionally, Medical Care and Sport minister Bruno Bruins recently declared that former nurses and doctors whose registration in the BIG-register had expired after 1 January 2018 may still return to work without having to re-register in the BIG-register. The deployment of additional healthcare personnel was urgently needed to combat the Coronavirus outbreak as effectively as possible.
Bianca Tetteroo, Member of the Executive Board of Achmea, commented “Achmea is a large and leading employer. Our 14,000 colleagues include many employees with a (recently expired) BIG registration. For example, they may work for our health insurers Zilveren Kruis and De Friesland, our emergency centre Eurocross, and in parts of our income, absenteeism, pension and life insurance functions. We hope that this will help to alleviate the workload in healthcare”.
Recently, Achmea also announced that over 11,000 colleagues were working from home in order to keep the insurer’s operations running smoothly and to be there for their customers at this challenging time.
Achmea says the company’s mission is to contribute to a healthy, safe and future-proof society. In times like this, its mission remains relevant. The company is at the heart of society and involved in the current crisis in several areas. The products and services of Centraal Beheer, Interpolis, Zilveren Kruis and Achmea’s other brands play a major role in the lives of customers. As a cooperative insurer, Achmea says it wants to do the best for its customers and focus on the best possible maintenance of services. The organisation is already taking many extra steps together to ensure this.
