May 27, 2026 · 6 min read
The patient did not leave. The system let go.
In Dutch mental health care, an ending is not always the patient drifting off. The system terminates the relationship through structurally different mechanisms: a patient refused entry for being "too complex" after a long wait; a short-term trajectory that closes at a by-design 8 to 12 sessions; a financing ceiling that, while it was live, stopped treatment for 33% of affected people in the GGZ and blocked new care for 69%; and disputed discharges a tribunal sometimes judged careless, including one referral made without asking the patient. The financing cutoff is now being dismantled for independent practices. What stays is the question of how an ending is done, because a cold ending compounds the wound and a warm one does not.