Els Borst

Infobox Politician
name = Els Borst


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small_| office = Dutch Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport
term_start = 1994
term_end = 2002
predecessor = Hedy d'Ancona
successor = Eduard Bomhoff
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birth_date = Birth date and age|1932|3|22|mf=y
birth_place = Amsterdam, Netherlands
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party = Democrats 66 (D66)
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Prof.dr. Else Borst-Eilers (born March 22, 1932 in Amsterdam) is a former Dutch politician, she led Democrats 66 (D66)) in the 1998 election campaign and served as Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport for eight years, the last four as deputy prime minister. Before entering politics she had a distinguished career in medicine.

Life

Life before politics

Borst attended the Barlaeus Gymnasium of Amsterdam graduating in 1950. The same school was attended by People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) leader Frits Bolkestein, who was one class below her. Following graduation she studied medicine graduating in 1958. She took special courses on pediatric medicine and immunohaematology when she as assistant-physician at the "Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis" in Amsterdam. In 1965 she started writing her thesis, while working as a medical scientist at Utrecht University, researching immunohaematology. In 1972 she was promoted Ph.D. at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam) for her thesis on the development and prevention of rhesus immunisation. In 1969 she has already become the head of the Bloodbank of the University Hospital of Utrecht, and in 1976 she became medical director of that hospital. In 1986 she left this position to become vice-chair of the Health Council, which she combined from 1992 with a position as professor in "evaluating medical actions" at the University of Amsterdam. In the Health Council she chaired the committees on immunisation, genetics and medical ethics.

She had also been politically active. In 1968 she joined D66, and was active as a rank-and-file member. In 1976 for instance, when D66 had lost nearly all its members and performed particularly bad in the polls, Borst was a volunteer in the promotion and revitalization campaign of the party, led by Jan Terlouw.

Borst also held many positions in the medical world, she was chair of the College for Blood Transfusion, chair of the Committee on Research in Medical Ethics and wrote for several scientific journals in the field of medicine.

Political life

In 1994 Borst became minister of Health for D66 in the First cabinet of Wim Kok. She was a specialist minister. As a minister Borst is known for two things, for championing many progressive causes in medical ethics and for trying to reform the medical system to better cope with the aging population.

In 2001 she implemented the most important law of her career, "de Wet Toetsing levensbeëindiging en hulp bij zelfdoding" (the law on the legal review of euthanasia and assisted suicide). Euthanasia in the Netherlands was legalized under special conditions, concerning the carefulness of the actions of the physician.

In other medical ethical question, she also showed her progressive leanings:
*In 1994 she enforced the rights of patients towards their doctors, giving them the right to information and privacy, and the explicit right to refuse treatment.
*In 1996 she implemented the law on organ donation, all Dutch citizens would be asked when they turned eighteen, whether they wanted to become organ donor.
*In 2001 she signed the law on foetal tissue, which legalized the scientific use of foetal tissue for medical research applications, if the parents agreed on the issue, and if the foetal tissue was the result of an abortion or miscarriage.
*In 2002 she prevented the practice of xenotransplantation, which would be prohibited, until the risks to humans was not clear yet.
*She also defended the Dutch system of soft drugs.

She also faced problems preparing the Dutch medical system for the aging of the population. An important part of her reforms of the medical system was the plan to integrate all health insurance (public and private), so that all citizens would pay the same amount for the same coverage. Although her ministry's budget was drastically increased during this period, she still had to limit the budgets of the hospitals. This led to a problem of long waiting lists for simple medical procedures. From both the political left and the political right she was criticized for what was seen as her mismanagement of the medical system. Pim Fortuyn put it dramatically when in an Elsevier collumn he wrote that "Borst is worse than bin Laden", because she had caused more deaths than the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In the 1998 elections Borst succeeded Hans van Mierlo as lijsttrekker for D66. She was parachuted by the party's leadership in a press-conference where Van Mierlo announced her candidacy with the words: "It has become a girl, and we call her Els." Words many parents use to announce the birth of their new born child. Although Borst lost the elections -her party lost ten of its twenty-four seats- she remained the ministry of Health, and even became deputy-prime-minister. During the formation talks Borst served as fractievoorzitter of D66 for one week (7 May - 14 May 1998), and as formateur.

After the parliamentary inquiry in the El Al Flight 1862 (Bijlmer Plane Crash), Borst faced a motion of no confidence in June 1999. The inquiry committee had concluded that Borst and her ministry of Health did not react well to the health problems of survivors of the disaster. The motion was rejected by parliament after an eighteen hour long debate.

After a 2001 interview in the NRC Handelsblad Borst also faced another motion of no-confidence. In the interview she had said "It has been done" (Dutch: "Het is volbracht") on completing the law on euthanasia. Which according to the Bible are the last words of Jesus, on the cross. The orthodox Protestant parties ChristianUnion (ChristenUnie or CU) and Reformed Political Party (SGP), who had opposed euthanasia were insulted by this. Although the motion was not carried by parliament, Borst made her apologies for those words to parliament.

During her ministry she became member of the Institute of Medicine in Washington and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh.

Life after Politics

Before the 2002 elections she retired from political life. On 8 February 2003 she became honorary member of D66. Borst still has many positions in public life, serving as member of the Remembrance of the Dead and Liberation Day Committees. She also holds many positions in the medical world, she is chairperson of the board of NIVEL (National Institute for Scientific Research in Medicine) and chairperson of the Federation of Dutch Cancer Patients Organizations and chair of the advisory board of the Brain Foundation of the Netherlands.