Almost four years, about 1,900 children, no entry in the BIG register: the Roosendaal youth-health 'doctor' whose missing licence was flagged repeatedly and never acted on

The Netherlands keeps one public register of licensed health professionals, the BIG register, and anyone who is not in it may not call themselves a doctor. Youth health care, the school-age checks and vaccinations offered to every child, is run by municipal public health services, the GGDs. A basisarts is a doctor who has finished medical school but not yet specialised, and that title too depends on registration. In 2024 one GGD found it had run the check and never acted on the result.

According to NOS, GGD West-Brabant announced on 26 September 2024 that it had dismissed with immediate effect an employee who had worked for almost four years as a basisarts with children aged 4 to 18 in Roosendaal, Moerdijk and Rucphen without being in the BIG register. The service estimated he had been in contact with about 1,900 children and said parents, guardians and the children were informed that afternoon. NOS reported that the GGD had filed a criminal complaint, commissioned an independent investigation and could not say whether the man held a medical diploma. Medisch Contact, the Dutch doctors' journal, reported the same figures.

Omroep Brabant reported on 10 October 2024 that the Public Prosecution Service had confirmed the suspect was a 30-year-old man from Roosendaal, and that doctors at the GGD were going through "hundreds of dossiers" of children he had seen. According to NOS, two recent internal reports and an earlier complaint from a school had concerned advice he gave; both outlets reported the GGD stressing that none of the signals involved sexual boundary violations. The service told NOS it had dropped the ball.

Medisch Contact later reported the findings of the external review under the headline that the GGD's own errors had let the impostor work there for four years. The man had no BIG registration when he was hired. Repeated checks afterwards showed he was not registered, and nobody acted on the result. The control existed and was run more than once; what failed was the step where someone reads the answer and acts.

For students and families the register is the only thing that counts. A job title, an employer's badge, even a diploma prove nothing by themselves, and in India, Pakistan, Nigeria or Kenya the equivalent is the medical council's online register. Look up any "doctor" or consultant before paying anything. And if a Dutch public health service can see a negative result and carry on, do not assume an employer, agent or college has verified the people it puts in front of you. Ask for the registration number and confirm it at the source. Comparable cases in Germany, France and Switzerland are recorded elsewhere on this site.