Click is on one at BabZ Home Care
DATE
25 May 2022
TEXT
Maja Landeweer
IMAGE
Fleur Beemster
Margriet Plaizier of BabZ Home Care carefully chooses her matches between caregiver and care recipient. "There has to be trust," she says.
Yhe click. That's number one in home care, they think at BabZ. Leave that to owner Margriet Plaizier (56). Her matches between care provider and care recipient are - almost - always right. "When I visit a client at home, I often have an employee in mind right away. Someone who talks very nicely, for example, because the client values that. It's almost always right. Then the caregiver says: 'Gee, Margriet, how I like it here'."
'With an older lady, you don't want someone who starts tutoring right away'
When someone comes to help you wash or dress because you can no longer do it yourself, it is very intimate. It is quite a step to hand that over. Mutual respect makes a world of difference. "With an elderly lady, you don't want someone who immediately starts tutoring you or someone who immediately starts talking about the fact that those old, dusty books you stumble over could go. Rather something too modest than too bold."
BabZ Home care
You have to have a good feeling with someone, says Plaizier, there has to be trust. So she pays attention to that when she pairs up. She knows what fits, has a feel for it. What always comes first at BabZ: "We adapt to the client and not the other way around. You do come into someone's home."
Plaizier tells it in her atmospheric porch flat in the Bomenbuurt neighbourhood, where she has a home office. This is where she conducts interviews with the self-employed people she selects - 'they have to be polite and look well-groomed' - who she sends to vulnerable Hague residents.
Matchmaker
The Hague is a matchmaker with a healthcare background. Yes, she could also have started a relationship agency, she agrees smiling, but the former nurse's heart goes out to care. For years, she worked for a home care organisation where she did the same thing she is doing now: bringing care providers and care seekers together.
Until her job disappeared due to a reorganisation. "For the first time in my life, I had no job. In September I got laid off, in November I was out: I am going to start for myself. Earlier, I never dared to do so because the children were still small. In February 2016, the time had come."
BabZ Home care
Now five years ago, BabZ Home Care started: a relatively small home care organisation with 70 self-employed workers that pays close attention to clients' personal needs. "Larger organisations have neighbourhood routes. You can give a preference for the time they come by, but if everyone wants help at eight o'clock in the evening, that doesn't work. With us, it all goes in consultation with the client and more can be done. The clients have regular carers."
 | Read also: 'Nursing suits out, domesticity in.' Director care villa Wassenaar: 'We are guests of the residents' |
The people who knock on BabZ's door include overburdened informal carers, people who can no longer manage on their own but are still on the waiting list for the nursing home, or terminal patients in need of night care. A large proportion of BabZ's clients hire private care because they want just a bit more than what the health insurer offers, but the agency also offers care in kind (through the insurer) and care from a personal budget.
Extension
Meanwhile, expansion is imminent. In addition to her own home care agency, Margriet Plaizier is starting a temporary care agency. To also help other organisations find that right match for those in need of care.
text Maja Landeweer / image Fleur Beemster
Margriet Plaizier of BabZ Home Care carefully chooses her matches between caregiver and care recipient. "There has to be trust," she says.
Yhe click. That's number one in home care, they think at BabZ. Leave that to owner Margriet Plaizier (56). Her matches between care provider and care recipient are - almost - always right. "When I visit a client at home, I often have an employee in mind right away. Someone who talks very nicely, for example, because the client values that. It's almost always right. Then the caregiver says: 'Gee, Margriet, how I like it here'."
'With an older lady, you don't want someone who starts tutoring right away'
When someone comes to help you wash or dress because you can no longer do it yourself, it is very intimate. It is quite a step to hand that over. Mutual respect makes a world of difference. "With an elderly lady, you don't want someone who immediately starts tutoring you or someone who immediately starts talking about the fact that those old, dusty books you stumble over could go. Rather something too modest than too bold."
BabZ Home care
You have to have a good feeling with someone, says Plaizier, there has to be trust. So she pays attention to that when she pairs up. She knows what fits, has a feel for it. What always comes first at BabZ: "We adapt to the client and not the other way around. You do come into someone's home."
Plaizier tells it in her atmospheric porch flat in the Bomenbuurt neighbourhood, where she has a home office. This is where she conducts interviews with the self-employed people she selects - 'they have to be polite and look well-groomed' - who she sends to vulnerable Hague residents.
Matchmaker
The Hague is a matchmaker with a healthcare background. Yes, she could also have started a relationship agency, she agrees smiling, but the former nurse's heart goes out to care. For years, she worked for a home care organisation where she did the same thing she is doing now: bringing care providers and care seekers together.
Until her job disappeared due to a reorganisation. "For the first time in my life, I had no job. In September I got laid off, in November I was out: I am going to start for myself. Earlier, I never dared to do so because the children were still small. In February 2016, the time had come."
BabZ Home care
Now five years ago, BabZ Home Care started: a relatively small home care organisation with 70 self-employed workers that pays close attention to clients' personal needs. "Larger organisations have neighbourhood routes. You can give a preference for the time they come by, but if everyone wants help at eight o'clock in the evening, that doesn't work. With us, it all goes in consultation with the client and more can be done. The clients have regular carers."
| Read also: 'Nursing suits out, domesticity in.' Director care villa Wassenaar: 'We are guests of the residents' |
The people who knock on BabZ's door include overburdened informal carers, people who can no longer manage on their own but are still on the waiting list for the nursing home, or terminal patients in need of night care. A large proportion of BabZ's clients hire private care because they want just a bit more than what the health insurer offers, but the agency also offers care in kind (through the insurer) and care from a personal budget.
Extension
Meanwhile, expansion is imminent. In addition to her own home care agency, Margriet Plaizier is starting a temporary care agency. To also help other organisations find that right match for those in need of care.
