Foreign workers who come to the Netherlands to do low-skilled work and then lose their jobs should return home to be treated for non-urgent health conditions, health minister Fleur Agema has told current affairs show Zembla.

Agema, a minister on behalf of the far-right PVV, said healthcare workers should assess if jobless labour migrants have the right to treatment. “It is not up to me to decide what urgent care is. That is for the professionals,” she said. “And they should decide together ‘who do we have in front of us and is it not time that they went home’?”

An estimated 5,000 people, mainly from eastern Europe, are currently without health insurance in the Netherlands because they have lost their job. Their care is paid for via the health ministry, which has a €75 million fund to help people who are uninsured.

Doctors have reacted with shock to the minister’s suggestion. “Our doctors have sworn to help all patients,” said Inge de Wit from the Ikazia hospital in Rotterdam. “It would be inhuman to take care away from them.”

The Dutch hospitals association NVZ has also called on the minister to clarify what she means.

Legislation introduced in 2015 to stamp out fraud and non payment means that people in the Netherlands without a valid address lose their right to health insurance.

Labour migrants often lose their homes when they lose their jobs or their contract ends, because despite calls for change, staffing agencies remain largely responsible for providing their housing as well.

“So you are saying if you become homeless, you have no right to healthcare?” said Rotterdam Michelle van Tongerloo, who treats the homeless. “So if I see someone on the street who may be ill, am I to check if they are a local resident or not? You can’t do that, as a doctor.”

Legislation

Social affairs minister Eddy van Hijum told MPs last month that legislation designed to stop low-skilled workers from abroad from being exploited by staffing agencies has been postponed again because there is no one to monitor compliance.

The legislation should have come into effect on January 1, 2026. It would have required staffing agencies to get formal approval from the ministry before being allowed to operate and pay a deposit of €100,000 as evidence of their commitment to pay workers properly and meet tax and premium obligations.

It is the second time the legislation, supposed to end the exploitation of thousands of seasonal and other food industry and logistics workers, has been delayed.