Far-right Brussels MP Bob De Brabandere (Vlaams Belang), together with his party colleague and Federal MP Britt Huybrechts, has tabled a motion for a resolution in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe concerning the chronic lack of Dutch-language care in Brussels’ public hospitals.
Every public healthcare institution in the Brussels-Capital Region is legally obliged to assist patients in both Dutch and French. In practice, however, this obligation appears to be a dead letter, resulting in numerous tragedies.
“Year after year, government after government, Dutch-speakers are told that things will be sorted out. In practice, nothing changes at all,” said De Brabandere.
“By raising this issue there, I hope to increase the pressure on the Brussels government to finally take decisive action and ensure that Dutch speakers, too, can receive healthcare in their own language,” he said.
Related News
- 'Goeiemorgen, bonjour': Conductor receives complaint for speaking French on train in Vilvoorde
- French, Dutch or even English? What are Belgium's language rules on trains
- 'What a country': Complaint against conductor for speaking French on train in Flanders upheld
A&E departments are most frequently at fault, and this affects not only Brussels residents, warns De Brabandere. “I certainly hope that the other Flemish parties represented in the Assembly will support my initiative,” he said.
Together with his colleague Huybrechts, he tabled a so-called “written declaration” in the Assembly of the Council of Europe in which the Assembly condemns the situation in Brussels’ hospitals and calls for action, as well as a motion for a resolution in which he asks the Assembly to produce an in-depth report on the enforcement of language rights in healthcare in bilingual and multilingual regions, using the Brussels Region as an example of how not to do it.
The resolution was tabled with the required number of signatures. The ‘written declaration’ still requires the support of another political group within the Assembly.
