Federal Health Minister Maggie De Block has not consulted the French-speaking community yet about her plan to retrain people who lost their jobs during the coronavirus crisis into nursing staff.
Wallonia’s Minister in charge of Education and Social Promotion Valérie Glatigny updated the Walloon Parliament on De Block’s project on Tuesday.
Granting the title of nurse is subject to compliance with Belgian, but also European, legislation, Glatigny pointed out. She acknowledged, however, that this training could be facilitated by the validation of previous experience for people with some experience in the care sector.
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The real challenge in this respect is not training, according to Glatigny, but rather retaining candidates in these studies as well as in the nursing profession.
"There is a lot of groundwork to be laid to make the profession more attractive," Glatigny concluded.
De Block had proposed her plan for nursing training in mid-May in view of the hundreds of thousands of job losses that were feared as a result of the crisis, and the chronic shortage of nursing staff in hospitals.
The scheme is part of a larger employment programme called Formation 600, which already offers free nursing training to hospital staff, including those who are not medically trained.
The Brussels Times
