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 |
|---|---|
| Original language | Dutch |
| Pages (from-to) | 51-53 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde |
| Volume | 161 |
| Issue number | 51/52 |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |