Disaster expert on pioneering work at the Bijlmer disaster
Interview with psychiatrist and founder Berthold Gersons
Berthold Gersons was one of the founders of the ARQ Centre of Expertise for the Impact of Disasters and Crises. A lot has changed in 30 years. An evolution took place.
When a plane crashed into flats in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer in 1992, there was still no centre of expertise for psychosocial disaster relief. Psychiatrist Berthold Gersons, then head of psychiatry at the Amsterdam UMC, pioneered what is now called the ARQ Centre of Expertise for the Impact of Disasters and Crises. Since 2020, ARQ even has a special chair for this, which is held by Michel Dückers. The chair is affiliated with the University of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands, close to the gas extraction area where the inhabitants have been plagued by earthquakes for years. Due to COVID-19, Michel Dückers was only able to deliver his inaugural lecture, entitled 'The images that move us, the predictability of the disasters we create together', in 2022.
"It was too much for one person."
Pioneering work
Looking back on his pioneering work at the Bijlmer disaster, Berthold Gersons thinks back to his former workplace at the AMC, less than half a mile from the Bijlmer disaster site. He tried to apply the knowledge he had gained there in his work with traumatised people on the much larger scale required for disasters. He provided information through the media and at meetings about the consequences of trauma to survivors, relatives, eyewitnesses, care providers and authorities. With others he also set up an aftercare plan and investigated the psychological consequences of the disaster. By 2000, Gersons was regarded as a ‘disaster expert’ and was therefore asked to advise on the fireworks disaster in Enschede and, after the turn of the year, on the aftermath of the café fire in Volendam. On this subject, he says: “I was honoured to always be asked, but I thought it would be much better to outsource this task to a centre of expertise. It was too much for one person.”
"Over the years the ARQ Centre of Expertise for the Impact of Disasters and Crises has become a serious entity."
Centre of expertise
The predecessor of the ARQ Centre of Expertise for the Impact of Disasters and Crises was founded on 15 April 2002. At that time it was still called the National Centre of Expertise for Psychosocial Care after Disasters and was supported by the Ministries of Health, Defence and the Interior. The goal: at the time of a disaster, people had to be able to make immediate use of up-to-date knowledge in the field of psychosocial relief and aftercare after disasters and of expert advisers. For the first 10 years, an Advisory Board acted as a source of knowledge for Impact. The board consisted of Dutch experts in the field of psychotrauma, led by the first director Magda Rooze.
From 2002 to 2011, the centre of expertise was affiliated with the Psychiatry Department of the AMC, then transferred to ARQ. Berthold Gersons – who has since retired from the AMC – also continued to ‘help build‘ ARQ for ten years. Berthold: “the ARQ Centre of Expertise for the Impact of Disasters and Crises has become a serious entity. It is an entity that not only proves its usefulness to those affected by the gas quakes in the north, but also to people who suffered from the floods in the south of the Netherlands.”