Health care

She is honorary chair of the Netherlands Red Cross. From 1995 to the end of 2004 she was chair of the Standing Commission of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. In November 2005 she became a member of the Governing Board of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
She had her first practical experience of Red Cross work in 1965, when she trained as a Nursing Auxiliary First Class in a hospital in Amersfoort and on the J. Henri Dunant, a Red Cross hospital ship which takes disabled people on holiday trips. She is also patron of the National Union of Volunteers, an organisation devoted to volunteer social work.