Four hours in a Dutch ER with a hurt foot, and one dad says he is done with Europe

Four hours.

That is how long one father says he sat in a Dutch emergency room, still waiting for a cast on his son's foot. The night before, the boy could not sleep from the pain. A call for help ended with advice to give painkillers and call tomorrow.

On 10 October he wrote that Europe is dead. He said people are taxed 50% on everything, and that it is "time to leave." The post passed 652,000 views.

The replies turned into a brawl. Some people agreed, some said it is worse everywhere else, and a few brought receipts. Here are the numbers.

Why did the Dutch phone line say "call tomorrow"?

In the Netherlands the family doctor, the huisarts, is the front door. After hours, that job goes to the huisartsenpost, an out-of-hours GP service that often sits next to a hospital.

You phone first. A triage nurse decides if you can wait, if you should come in, or if you need an ambulance. Life-threatening emergencies go to 112.

So "give painkillers and call tomorrow" is the system working as designed. The nurse judged it could wait. The father took his son to the ER anyway.

Some hospitals send people without a GP referral back to the huisartsenpost. That is a local rule, and a hospital in Breda has announced it. One study found about half of Dutch ER patients arrive through a GP or the after-hours service.

Photo: Alf van Beem / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Is a four-hour wait in a Dutch ER normal?

Not unusual, going by the ER doctors' own numbers. The Dutch association of emergency physicians said in 2022 that 24% of ER patients wait more than four hours. That is about 180,000 people a year.

Dutch lawmakers have also heard that the number of ERs fell from 95 to 79 in ten years, while temporary "ER stops" went up 22% in a year.

Now look at the same four-hour line elsewhere.

The measures are not identical, so treat the table as a rough guide. England's official target is 95% within four hours, and it has not hit that since 2013/14. In January 2026, 71,517 patients in England waited 12 hours or more from the decision to admit them to a bed.

A Dutch ER and an English A&E look almost the same on the four-hour line. Roughly one patient in four crosses it in both.

Does the Netherlands really tax people 50%?

Close, but only at the top. The highest Dutch income tax rate in 2026 is 49.5%. It applies to income above roughly €78,000 to €79,000, depending on the source.

Below that, the two lower brackets are about 36% and 38%. So "taxed 50% on everything" is not how most people's pay slips look.

Health costs also work differently from a British or South African setup. Every adult has to buy private insurance, and then pays a yearly deductible called the eigen risico. In 2026 it is €385. A visit to the family doctor is outside it. A trip to the ER counts toward it, and so do the medicines and blood tests a doctor orders.

Children under 18 do not pay the deductible. So the boy's visit would not touch his father's €385. The cost here is time.

Photo: Vincent van Zeijst / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

What did the replies say?

The comments were a mix of fury and one-upmanship.

One person said it has been years since they could get a doctor's appointment in their own country. A Dutch woman said she was turned away from the ER twice until she fainted, and that doctors then found a perforation in her stomach. That is her account, and we have not seen records.

Another reply said the Dutch answer is "Take paracetamol," and that it solves everything in Holland. It was clearly a joke.

Then came the reply from India. The writer said a scan and a cast there take two hours and cost under 300 euros. We cannot check that claim, but it is the number people kept quoting back.

Someone else wrote the line that ended the argument for many readers. They said it is going to be even worse outside of Europe.

So is Europe dead, or is this just what a hospital looks like?

The honest answer is that both sides found proof. If your child is hurt, see a doctor, as this father did.

The Dutch deductible is €385. The top tax rate is 49.5%. A quarter of patients wait more than four hours, and a quarter of English patients do too. And the US median visit is 162 minutes, which is 2 hours and 42 minutes, even before the bill.

The father wanted a cast and a bed. He got a post that 652,000 people watched, and a question nobody can settle. If four hours is what a Dutch ER looks like on a bad night, where in the world is a good night?