Ganshoren (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – On April 7th, 2025, Ganshoren’s nursing home closed immediately due to safety issues. Iriscare, SRL Gentilly, and Gravelle were involved. 46 residents were relocated to other homes by the end of the day.
On April 7th, 2025, Brussels‘ Iriscare healthcare told the mayor of Ganshoren that a town nursing home was going to be close because it wasn’t safe. The building had issues like an elevator that could not be used to transport individuals on stretchers, passageways which were too small for individuals who use wheelchairs, and communal areas that were too small.
They mentioned that when there are safety problems like this, the nursing home has 90 days to move the residents to a different place. But this time, the nursing home’s owner, SRL Gentilly, went bankrupt on the same day. Because of this, the government ordered the nursing home to close immediately.
Why did Ganshoren’s nursing home close and how were residents relocated?
The town of Ganshoren, Iriscare, social welfare centers, and Infor-Homes had a plan in place in case the nursing home had to close suddenly. This plan helped them move all 46 residents to different nursing homes by the end of the day.
8 people went to Home Heydeken in Ganshoren before Friday evening. The other residents were sent to nursing homes in Brussels, Anderlecht, and Molenbeek. Everyone worked together to make sure the residents were taken care of and didn’t have to go through a lot of changes, even though the nursing home’s owner went bankrupt and the building had to close right away.
“The residents were able to take a few things, but it wasn’t a real move. That wasn’t the priority at the time,”
Mayor Jean-Paul Van Lather (Les Engagés) told La Capitale.
According to the officials, residents and their families will be able to go back to the closed nursing home to get their things. The government stopped giving them money in October of last year.
The nursing home, which was run by Gravelle, hadn’t been safe or run properly since 2020. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government kept giving them money to help them stay open. Even though they had problems, the nursing home didn’t fix them to meet the safety standards set by Iriscare.
In January 2023, Gravelle asked to keep running the nursing home, but they had to meet certain standards. In October 2024, Iriscare told them that their paperwork was incomplete, so they couldn’t keep running the nursing home.
Iriscare said that the nursing home had plenty of time to make the changes they needed, but they didn’t. This is why government stopped giving them money, and the nursing home went bankrupt. Iriscare said that the nursing home was given many chances and warnings to fix the problems, but they didn’t.
