Growing Pressure on GPs Signals Impending Healthcare Crisis in Belgium

Brussels (Brussels Morning) – Belgium faces a looming healthcare crisis as pressure on general practitioners (GPs) intensifies. Domus Medica urges policymakers to heed its 10 recommendations to avert worsening challenges in the healthcare sector.

Several aspects are putting increasing stress on doctors across Belgium. General practitioners’ association Domus Medica has set out 10 recommendations to future governments to avoid the impending healthcare crisis.

Why Is Belgium’s Healthcare System Under Strain?

According to the Brussels Times, General practitioners in Belgium, and the healthcare sector more commonly, have long demonstrated that they are struggling. Ahead of the local, provincial and Federal elections in the country, Domus Medica has dragged on the alarm bells, urging for structural changes to prevent the problem from worsening.

“Healthcare is under growing pressure due to an ageing population, an increasing number of psychosocial problems and a lack of resources and manpower,” the association cautioned. “If action is not taken quickly, it will place a heavy burden on the health system and compromise the quality of care.”

What Solutions Does Domus Medica Offer for Belgium?

The group expressed the solution is clear: to stop this care “infarct”, better development of general and primary care is required. “After all, it has been proven that patients with a permanent family physician in a nearby practice, need less care and live longer and healthier lives.”

To achieve committing to prevention and setting uniform health goals, it proposed ten concrete recommendations about four themes – “Let family physicians be family physicians”, “A turnaround to more prevention“, “Health care is collaboration” and “No integrated care without integrated policies” – in a memorandum sent to politicians and political parties.

What Urgent Changes Does Domus Medica Recommend?

In the first category, the group states every general practice, regardless of practice form, should be able to obtain at least administrative and nursing support and governments must dedicate themselves to reducing the administrative and other responsibilities on family physicians. It also called on local authorities to encourage the retention, attraction and development of GP practices on their territory.

From a precluding point, the association wants governments to devote to knowledge about how a patient can make optimal usage of the general practitioner and other players in the healthcare landscape, through a broad public campaign and the launch of an accessible online platform. This would reduce the demand for less urgent GP interventions.

Why Do GPs Need Support in Belgium?

It also called for governments to maintain GP circles so that the cooperation between doctors and regional hospitals, as well as other care-providing players on call (pharmacist, dentist, psychologist, etc.), is strengthened.

Finally, it expresses all trainee specialists should do six months of training in general practice during their first years of specialist training, just as learner general practitioners already do six months of internship in a hospital. In this way, collaboration is taught, and the reasoning goes.

“We call for a constructive dialogue, social debate and cooperation to transform the memorandum’s proposals into concrete actions,” Domus Medica stated. “All policy levels must be fully committed and work together to realise the proposed measures to strengthen health care in Belgium.”