Just under 2% of all residential care home residents in Flanders had a recorded "medication incident" in 2021; meaning they either took the wrong dose, took the medication at the wrong time, were administered incorrectly or even received the wrong medication.
The findings were revealed in a quality report by Flemish care agencies and are based on a count of 74,676 residents in 782 of the 809 recognised residential care centres in Flanders.
This year's figures represent a rise since November 2021, when 1.7% of residents recorded a medication incident. Following the news about insulin overdoses in residential care centres in Oostrozebeke and Hasselt in September, the medication policy in the nursing homes and its monitoring by the Flemish government is under a magnifying glass.
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Independent auditor Peter Adam has said that the findings show a lack of control and criticised the government for enforcing more robust checks and balances: "residential care centres have to forward these incidents to the Flemish government. But the government does not check whether those indicators actually reflect quality."
VIKZ director Svin Deneckere acknowledged the need "to work on quality of care, which can be done by improving the detection of medicine incidents."
