15 Mar '16

Belgian GPs hardest working in Europe

Summary

According to an international survey of family doctors, those working in Belgium put in more hours than all their European counterparts

 

50+ hours a week

General practitioners (GPs) in Belgium work an average 51 hours per week, which is longer than GPs in 33 other countries that participated in an international survey – mainly European countries but also Australia and Canada. Four hundred Belgian GPs took part in the survey.

That is a “sad record,” said Jan De Maseneer, a GP and professor at Ghent University in De Standaard. “With this workload, GPs can’t have a healthy balance between work and private life. It’s not a coincidence that many Belgian GPs suffer from burn-out.”

To reduce the workload, experts suggest that GPs be able to call on the help of physician assistants, not yet a profession in Belgium. Assistants would take care of administrative tasks and also carry out simple medical duties like taking blood samples, giving GPs more time to concentrate on patients’ cases. Public health minister Maggie De Block has established a work group to investigate the issue.

Belgian doctors help an average four patients per hour, generally fewer in comparison with other countries. The reason they work more hours is because of house calls and devoting more time to each patient. The results of the study are published in the Dutch magazine Huisarts & Wetenschap (General Practitioners and Science).

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Health-care system

The health-care system is federally organised in Belgium. Competing health insurance providers and a proportional contribution-based system ensure that healthcare is accessible to virtually all citizens and costs remain relatively low.
Law - From the age of 25, Belgian citizens and residents – both employees and those self-employed – are legally obliged to have health insurance.
Insurance providers - The mutualiteiten or mutual insurance associations are typically Christian, liberal, socialist or independent.
Services - Refunds are given for services such as doctor’s consultations, prescribed medication and hospital care costs.
1 945

national health-care system is born

13

percent of salary employees contribute to social security

50

to 75% of healthcare costs reimbursed by mutuality

  • NIHDI
  • European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
  • Crossroads Bank for Social Security

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