December 17, 2020

Netherlands – Successful closure to a tumultuous year

In previous IPOPI e-News Stichting Voor Afweerstoornissen (SAS) mentioned the celebration of its 35th birthday on November 12. November was therefore chosen as our jubilee month, which consisted of 3 major and very successful events:

  • Webinar with the Director of National Institute for Public Health & the Environment and clinical immunologist Professors: Professor J. van Dissel, Professor T. Kuijpers, Professor M. van Hagen and Dr. P. Ellerbroek
  • SAS-family day online with 9 speakers: Dr. V. Dalm, Dr. H. Jolink, Drs J. Potjewijd, S. Bazen, Dr J. van Montfrans, B. Knopperts, Dr R. Bredius, Dr E. Buddingh and Dr G. de Bree. Multiple topics were covered, including: COVID-19, antibiotics, allergies, fear of needles, self-management and health insurances and being chronically ill.
  • All PID patients bake, a fun online event where our members baked festive cookies and talked about actual topics such as the upcoming COVID-19 vaccines.

To make the jubilee month extra special, a graphic facilitator attended our webinar and our online Family Day.

2021 will also see two familiar faces leave the SAS board of directors. Our chair, Yvonne van der Linde, will leave the board on December 31, 2020 and our treasurer, Peter Lambregts, will leave late spring.

It is always a struggle to find new volunteers, but 2020 was also marked by huge interest and increased membership and we hope to launch a new structure and a new board in 2021.