Changes in store for Flanders’ hospital system

Flanders has 55 hospitals, spread over 105 campus locations. The current landscape is a result of mergers over recent decades in a hunt for economies of scale. At the same time, most hospitals aim to offer a broad variety of services.

“Everyone wants to do everything,” according to Geert Peuskens of the government’s health-care agency. “People can more or less find a hospital for anything in their own region. But just because there’s a hospital in the area, it doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily get the best level of care.”

The agency has determined that the quality of some types of care in some hospitals cannot be guaranteed. Vandeurzen’s proposed Strategic Care Plan aims to remedy that. “With this plan, Flanders intends to better adapt medical care to the needs of the people,” Vandeurzen said. “The concentration of large-scale hospitals that offer the whole range of super-specialist services appears to have reached its limit.”

The plan proposes dividing the region into care areas, with care offered according to the needs of the local population. That means basic hospital care in some hospitals, with more complex procedures limited to specialist hospitals. Patients for those services might find themselves having to travel further than they would currently.

For some forms of treatment, there may be only one or two hospitals for the whole of Flanders, but the concentration of resources at those one or two locations will mean the service offered is of the highest quality. Examples might be transplant centres, Peuskens said, or the treatment of children with severe and chronic ailments.

The plan is still under discussion, with the federal government and the hospital sector itself. It will also go to the social and economic council and the advisory council on health, welfare and family for advice.

Photo courtesy UZ Brussel