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Richard van Veen and Harry Honebecke are technicians at the Dialysis Centre in Groningen
Excellent maintenance,
carefree health care
The dialysis machines at the Dialysis Centre in Groningen, the Netherlands, save patients
lives every day. Maintenance of these machines is quite literally a matter of life and
death. Thats why the technical department has structured and digitized all maintenance
activities. Of course this is very useful for management and auditors. But you really do it
for yourself and the patients: you know you wont forget anything.
Text: Niek Steenhuis Photography: Aad Hogendoorn
Do you see the difference? Harry Honebecke is holding up two When proper maintenance is a matter of
cups of water. He just filled them from two different faucets that are life and death
connected to the water treatment machine were standing next to. Harry Honebecke is a technician at the Groningen Dialysis Centre. He and
One cup is crystal clear, the other slightly less so. This is the water three others share responsibility for maintaining all machines needed for
we all drink at home every day. The clear liquid is what you get when over a hundred treatments that are provided at the centre and at patients
you thoroughly filter tap water: this is pure H2O. But pure H2O is too homes. They provide maintenance for the equipment at the Dialysis centres
corrosive for the human body, so after we filter the water we rarefy it main location near Groningen University Hospital such as the water
with a controlled dose of other substances. This way, we make sure the treatment plant and over a hundred dialysis machines as well as for the
water thats used for dialysis is safe. equipment at a number of health care centres throughout the region.
24 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017
The patients lives depend on this equipment, says Honebecke. Support for your plan is
important, but sometimes you
They have to get Dialysis treatment three times a week for four hours,
longer if they choose to be treated at home. These treatments are
exhausting, but patients simply cant survive without them. So proper
maintenance of all the equipment really is a matter of life and death,
have to take action and decide:
and it determines the quality of the treatment. The water has to be its time for a change right now.
just right, the machinery has to work perfectly and power outages
must be prevented at all cost.