This month, I interviewed Riet Strik Albers, (MANP, RN) who is a Nurse Practitioner, pediatric infectious diseases & immunology
Amalia children’s hospital, Radboud university medical center, The Netherlands
If you are a nurse working in the Netherlands, you may be interested in joining the group that has been started by Riet and her colleagues. See below for details.
- Where do you work?
I work 3 days a week in the Amalia (she is a like a Dutch princes!) children’s hospital, belonging to the Radboud university medical centre. I also work 1 day a week at the department of Internal medicine with adult patients.
- What is your role?
I’m a nurse practitioner.
In the outpatients clinic I do the checks of the children who are diagnosed with a humoral immunodeficiency. They come for a check 2 or 3 or 4 times a year. When they have to start with immunoglobulin substitution, I show the children and their parents the different possibilities and they will receive the first two administrations in the hospital. After that the homecare takes care of them, and I do the follow up in our hospital.
Besides the children with a humoral immunodeficiency, I also take care of children with HIV.
At the department of Internal medicine I inform the patients about the immunoglobulin substitution possibilities and start this up.
I also participate in studies.
I educate nurses.
With the physician we are responsible for all protocols used by nurses and medical staff in the whole hospital who work with PID patients.
Together with the doctors we organize patient meetings for information and education.
- Describe and average day?
I check patients at the outpatient clinic, after that I document the visits. Write a letter for the GP and check the prescriptions.
Call patients/parents about test results
Call patients/parents when they have questions, or are not feeling well
Do consultations at the day care children and adults; inform them about the different types of immunoglobulin substitution
When there is time left, I always have a TO DO list! (like checking protocol, prepare for a lesson for nurses or a symposium, document data in studies, write information brochures etc. etc.)
- How many of your patients receive SCIg therapy and please tell us a little about that e.g. push v pump
About 200 adults receive immunoglobulins, ¾ of them IVIg and ¼ SCIg (including facilitated). It’s a lot of IVIg, but in the Netherlands we have a homecare service.
About 50 children; 2/3 IVIg and 1/3 SCIg
In the Netherlands it’s possible to administer IVIg at home by a very good functioning homecare service, that’s why a lot of patients receive IVIg at home. Thereby the insurance pays everything.
- Do you have many patients that go onto transplant?
Only 1 or 2 per year PID patients. That takes place in the hospital in Leiden, not in our hospital.
- What affect, if any has genome sequencing had on your work?
Most of the time it does not have an immediate effect on treatment, but we hope we can say more about the type and prognoses off this certain PID.
Sometimes it’s helpful when more patients of 1 family is affected.
In some PID’s it seems easier to do the WES instead of all tests for diagnostic purpose.
- Why did you join INGID?
To meet other PID nurses and share experiences and learn from each other
Learn about immunoglobulin substitution
To improve my knowledge and skills
I hope I can contribute in improving our role as a PID-nurse in the world
I hope I can participate and improve the knowledge and skills of the PID nurse in the Netherlands. Therefore we organize a meeting for PID nurses in the Netherlands: The LW-VID. At this moment we have about 10 members and we hope that more and more people join us.
