Ombudsmen warn: 20,000 asylum children may lose health checks
Six local children's ombudsmen have written jointly to the responsible ministers warning that around 20,000 children living in asylum reception could spend months without the same access to preventive youth health care that every other child in the Netherlands has.
The problem is a gap between two contracts. The current agreement under which GGD GHOR provides youth health care in reception centres expires on 1 October 2026. The COA ran a tender in 2025 and awarded the work to a partnership of Arts en Zorg and GZA, but that new provider does not start until 1 June 2027. For the eight months in between, the ombudsmen say it is not clear which organisation is responsible, who can be held accountable, or how the continuity, quality and accessibility of the care will be guaranteed. Their letter asks the ministers for exactly that clarity.
The care at stake is not minor. Preventive youth health care covers vaccinations under the national immunisation programme and the routine checks that catch physical, psychological and developmental problems early, while they are still treatable. The ombudsmen, from Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Groningen and Nijmegen, point out that children in reception centres already face health risks, trauma, uncertainty and repeated moves between locations, which makes continuous care more important for them than for most children, not less. They invoke the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which applies to every child regardless of background or residence status, and argue that the children who depend most on state protection should not be the ones who lose out to administrative, organisational or financial decisions.
Nothing has been cut yet and the deadline is still weeks away. If you have children in reception, the practical step now is to use the arrangement while it is still running: make sure any outstanding vaccinations and scheduled check-ups are completed before 1 October, and ask the youth health care staff at your location to write down what is still due, so that anything falling into the gap can be picked up afterwards.