The Brussels Care Centre Athena will close after more than a decade of service due to the ongoing absence of the Brussels-Capital Region Government for over 600 days.
"Access to care should not depend on political inertia and fragile funding," the organisation wrote, announcing the shutdown on Tuesday.
Founded in 2014 by Doctors of the World, the Federation of Brussels General Practitioners, and the pharmacy.brussels, the healthcare centre helped people facing administrative and financial problems and people without a regular GP or access to healthcare.
Despite extensive efforts and repeated discussions with government agencies and officials, Athena's funding needs were not met. The healthcare centre concluded it cannot operate under these conditions.
Athena's shutdown will put even more pressure on Brussels hospitals. More healthcare initiatives in Brussles Region are at risk of shutting down. Doctors of the World have warned that the Humanitarian Hub will shut down by the end of March.
The founding organisations condemned the "lack of a clear political decision" to guarantee the long-term viability of a scheme that is nevertheless recognised as necessary.
"Access to healthcare for vulnerable populations cannot rely on precarious funding or on postponed decisions. In a context where the number of homeless people in the Brussels region has been increasing year after year, this service disruption is incomprehensible and inhumane," Athena stated.
"Nowhere else in Belgium is healthcare postponed as much as in Brussels. Nowhere else is poverty and homelessness so pervasive. For these groups, exclusion from healthcare is a daily reality," they concluded.
"At the heart of the problem is the fact that structural issues are being managed with an optional approach. This model is completely unstable and unsustainable, and that is a political responsibility," said Pierre Van Heddegem, director of Belgian operations for the humanitarian organisation Médecins du Monde.
Brussels Health Minister Alain Maron did not immediately respond to Belga's request.
