Last year, the first branch of the NPM-participation Het Gastenhuis opened. Located on Dordrecht’s historical Vest canal, this small-scale residential facility for people with dementia is managed by a pair of live-in carers, the married couple Ronald and Trudie Zwiers. The two pioneers took some time out to reflect on the home’s busy start-up period.
Last year, the first branch of the NPM-participation Het Gastenhuis opened. Located on Dordrecht’s historical Vest canal, this small-scale residential facility for people with dementia is managed by a pair of live-in carers, the married couple Ronald and Trudie Zwiers. The two pioneers took some time out to reflect on the home’s busy start-up period.
Everything in the landmark building, a converted school, still smells brand new. This is no surprise since, as Ronald Zwiers tells us, the refurbishment has only just been completed. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more desirable location in this southern Dutch town: featuring a waterfront terrace, the home sits on the periphery of Dordrecht’s picturesque old town centre. This is where Ronald and Trudie Zwiers will be managing their team of caregivers over the next few years, sharing responsibility with them for the care and wellbeing of a total of 20 dementia patients.
When we kick off the interview by asking ‘But let’s be serious for a moment, do you know what you’ve let yourselves in for?’ Trudie Zwiers looks over to her husband before letting out a laugh and answering: ‘To be perfectly honest, no. But while we don’t quite know what to expect exactly, we certainly have a plan in place. We did our homework: we visited many other, similar small-scale residential facilities all over the country, and we made sure to ask a lot of critical questions. Of course, we also spoke at length with the two women behind the Het Gastenhuis concept, and found that their approach to care was very similar to our own. That’s what eventually clinched the decision to take on this project.’
Both Ronald and Trudie are long-time healthcare professionals, having experience as a manager in the home care sector and as an assistant at a primary care clinic, respectively. Ronald: ‘We’d always tell the other person about our day when we got home in the evening, but actually working together is a completely different story. Running this home together, we’re not only partners but immediate colleagues as well. Since we work together so closely, we‘ve had to become familiar with each other’s work styles and figure out what duties each of us is best at. But all in all, it’s been pretty smooth sailing so far.’
