Margot Cloet: ‘Hospitals close wards due to a shortage of nurses’ – Belgium

The shortage of healthcare personnel is now becoming so acute that care sometimes has to be postponed. ‘We will have to make choices’, says Margot Cloet of Zorgnet-Icuro.

3768. There are so many vacancies for nurses on the VDAB site. Both hospitals and home nursing services and residential care centers are crying out for healthcare staff. This is primarily due to the so-called double aging of the population: nurses and care professionals of the baby boom generation are retiring, while the number of elderly people with severe care needs is increasing. ‘Although we have seen this coming for a long time, we are very ill-prepared for it,’ says Margot Cloet, managing director of Zorgnet-Icuro. ‘Due to the corona period, the shortage has only increased, because quite a few healthcare employees have left or dropped out. And that’s just the beginning: the problems will last for at least twenty years.’

Today, the lack of nurses and other healthcare personnel has major consequences. ‘Many hospitals have to slow down their operation and sometimes even close departments because they don’t have enough staff,’ says Cloet. ‘This often concerns departments that provide less technical performance, such as the rehabilitation department or geriatrics. Sometimes they solve the problem by referring patients more quickly to a residential care center, but there too there are too few staff and an admission stop is being announced more and more often.’

We will move towards a situation where some people – often the elderly – will not receive the care they need.

Flanders therefore urgently needs to look for more healthcare personnel. At the moment, 1600 lateral entrants are being prepared and the intake in nursing courses is also expected to increase. Another option is to deploy even more logistics staff to assist healthcare personnel. Because today, nurses in a hospital spend up to 40 percent of their time on tasks that strictly speaking should not be done by someone with their diploma.

‘It will never be enough’, Cloet knows. ‘We have to face the fact that in the coming years we will not be able to find enough people to take on all the tasks in healthcare. I fear that we are moving towards a situation where some people – often the elderly – will not receive the care they need. That means that we have to make choices and, for example, give priority to those most in need of care.’

3768. There are so many vacancies for nurses on the VDAB site. Both hospitals and home nursing services and residential care centers are crying out for healthcare staff. This is primarily due to the so-called double aging of the population: nurses and care professionals of the baby boom generation are retiring, while the number of elderly people with severe care needs is increasing. ‘Although we have seen this coming for a long time, we are very ill-prepared for it,’ says Margot Cloet, managing director of Zorgnet-Icuro. ‘Due to the corona period, the shortage has only increased, because quite a few healthcare employees have left or dropped out. And that’s just the beginning: the problems will continue for at least twenty years.’Today, the lack of nurses and other healthcare personnel has major consequences. ‘Many hospitals have to slow down their operation and sometimes even close departments because they don’t have enough staff,’ says Cloet. ‘This often concerns departments that provide less technical performance, such as the rehabilitation department or geriatrics. Sometimes they solve the problem by referring patients more quickly to a residential care center, but there too there are too few staff and an admission stop is increasingly announced.’Flanders therefore urgently needs to look for more healthcare staff. At the moment, 1600 lateral entrants are being prepared and the intake in nursing courses is also expected to increase. Another option is to deploy even more logistics staff to assist healthcare personnel. Because today, nurses in a hospital spend up to 40 percent of their time on tasks that strictly speaking should not be done by someone with their diploma. ‘It will never be enough’, Cloet knows. ‘We have to face the fact that in the coming years we will not be able to find enough people to take on all the tasks in healthcare. I fear that we are moving towards a situation where some people – often the elderly – will not receive the care they need. That means that we have to make choices and, for example, give priority to those most in need of care.’

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