New members of the Supervisory Board
30-09-2021 -by Aster van der Boon – Board Secretariat
Two new Supervisory Board members recently joined the Supervisory Board of De LIMES. In July, the then Supervisory Board had stepped down, after having initiated the start-up phase of GP posts De LIMES and laid a foundation for further building in the new governance structure with a new staff. The current Supervisory Board expects to welcome a third colleague in the short term and will be back at full strength by then.
The two new Supervisory Board members, Arjen van Zwol and chairman Dick Sulfuring, would like to introduce themselves.
Dick kicks off: “I think it’s great to contribute to making and keeping people better at De LIMES, after having done that before at youth care provider Enver in the Rotterdam region, among others. There I had reached the maximum term for a supervisor, a good time for my switch to De LIMES. Youth care and out-of-hours GP services may seem different, but they also have many similarities. There are committed people who want to help others. We often organise this in a complicated way. Many parties are involved and it is therefore a challenge to organize it in such a way that – in the case of De LIMES – we can all provide “excellent general practitioner emergency care” in a good way, as our mission briefly entails.
As an import from The Hague, my wife Karin, I and our three daughters enjoy living in the city. There, I contribute to the quality of life in the city as a supervisor at Filmhuis Den Haag and at Duurzaam Den Haag.”
It is with great pleasure that I am available to you. Although I have not been a supervisor before, I am very familiar with the ins and outs of GP surgeries. I have been working for the out-of-hours GP service in Rotterdam for 8 years, of which 6 years as a director of the cooperative. I know the problems that GPs experience and I know how difficult it can be to make a GP post function properly. For me as a supervisor, the public interest and the patient come first. But you can only take good care of someone else if you first take good care of yourself and that also applies to De LIMES. That’s where my focus will be.”
Arjen continues: “I am 40 years old, husband of Sanne and father of two beautiful children, almost 10 years general practitioner and practice owner, chairman of the cooperative board of Huisartsenposten Rijnmond and from 1 October member of the Supervisory Board of Huisartsenposten de LIMES!
The Supervisory Board formally supervises the Board of Directors. Dick explains: “An important task is to ensure that the managing director works as he should. For us, it’s a balance between checking and advising. As a Supervisory Board, we are independent of the organisation and of the general practitioners, who own De LIMES through their cooperative. We look out for the interests of everyone involved in De LIMES, especially patients, staff and general practitioners. If you want to know more about how that works, I recommend that you read the Healthcare Governance Code, which can be found at https://www.governancecodezorg.nl/“.
In order to be able to do its job properly, the Supervisory Board informs itself about how things work at De LIMES and likes to look around. During the first visits in the evenings and weekends, the open reception and the involvement of all employees at all locations stood out. That is very much to be appreciated and gives a lot of confidence. It is clear that there is still a lot to do after the merger: the organisation will have to develop further. After their introduction, Dick and Arjen are confident that this will work at De LIMES and they look forward to further cooperation with everyone.
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