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How a Nurse Kept Practicing After Losing His License
World

How a Nurse Kept Practicing After Losing His License

June 7, 2026 · Frisian News

A Dutch nurse continued treating patients for years despite having his registration deleted. The case reveals systematic failures in how healthcare authorities oversee licensed professionals between the time they lose standing and when someone finally notices.

English

A nurse in the Netherlands continued treating patients as a licensed professional even after his registration was supposed to end. He did this while drinking alcohol, sometimes showing up impaired. Only when authorities caught him did his name disappear from the official BIG registry of healthcare workers. The question is not whether he was reckless. The question is why the system took so long to stop him.

The healthcare disciplinary system caught him, but not before he had years to operate unchecked. His removal from the official register happened after the fact, which means he was working illegally for an unknown stretch of time. The BIG register is supposed to be the gatekeeper for who can call themselves a nurse. If someone can ignore that gatekeeper and keep working, the register fails its only real job: protecting patients from unqualified or dangerous providers.

This is not an isolated case of one bad actor. Healthcare systems across Europe have spotty oversight of licensed professionals between their registration and any actual oversight event. Most hospitals and clinics trust the BIG register to filter out the dangerous ones. They do not typically verify it independently. If a nurse lies about still being registered, a busy clinic may not catch it. Word of mouth might eventually expose the problem. A complaint might finally trigger an inspection. But how many patients does he see before that happens?

The Dutch health authorities move slowly. They investigate, they build a case, they send it to the disciplinary board. By the time the decision comes down, months or years have passed. This is not the inspector's fault alone. The system itself allows practitioners to coast between the moment they lose standing and the moment someone notices. A real safety system would require periodic re-verification. It would treat gaps in compliance as urgent, not administrative.

One nurse in Den Bosch is now banned. He will not work legally again. But nothing in this story suggests the system learned anything. The BIG register will remain a passive list that updates only when someone complains. Patients will continue to assume their nurse is checked and verified. And somewhere else, another provider is probably already operating in that same gap.


Published June 7, 2026 · Frisian News