Professionals in the home care sector will be protesting in Brussels and several major Walloon cities on Wednesday.
Carers will be taking to the streets to demand greater funding of the home nursing sector, the Federation of Home Aid and Care (FASD) announced on Tuesday.
The workers will begin gathering at major train stations across the country: Brussels-Central, Liège, Namur, Charleroi, Ottignies and Mons between 07:00 and 08:00. Workers will hand out leaflets to raise awareness of the underfunding in their sector.
The protestors will then converge in the capital at 11:00, occupying the Arts-Loi crossroads, near the office of the Federal Minister of Public Health, Frank Vandenbroucke. The care professionals will hold a press conference in front of the building before meeting a delegation from the minister’s office sometime in the afternoon.
To highlight the unsustainable pressure those working in the sector face, the FASD cited the regular administration of injections: home nurses in Belgium have an average of 35 seconds to perform an intramuscular injection in 2023. With budgets tightened it explained that the timeframe for essential procedures is continually being reduced – ten years ago nurses had 60 seconds per injection.
Related News
- Delhaize shops vandalised on Friday by anonymous collective
- National strike: 20,000 demonstrate against social dumping
Furthermore, a rise in the number of elderly people over the next few decades is also causing concern for health professionals. They are already witnessing a significant increase in demand for their services.
The FASD also points to a critical underfunding of their sector. “For 2023, the planned budget is €2 billion. According to the calculations, the home nursing sector needs to benefit from an additional 1.8 billion in order to be adequately funded,” the federation said.
