Public Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke and European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides visited the Jean Jaurès medical centre in Schaerbeek on Monday.
The visit was linked to the reform of front-line psychological care, which began more than two years ago in Belgium and aims to strengthen the deployment of mental health services at the grassroot level.
Begun in 2022, the reform seeks to break the isolation of front-line psychological care and improve people’s access to it through 32 care networks located throughout Belgium.
Close to 180,000 persons have been able to benefit from this new approach to psychological care, according to data for the period ending in May 2023, released on Monday by the Office of the Health Minister.
Over 2,800 psychologists and special education practitioners are part of this new culture of preventive care that seeks to reach out to patients by meeting them in environments they are familiar with: in sports clubs, at work, in schools or at public social services centres.
Minister Vandenbroucke highlighted the importance of this type of health-care outreach, which fills a gap created by the absence of early detection in front-line care until now.
“Psychologists today go where the problems manifest themselves,” Vandenbroucke said. “It’s the revolution that we needed,” he added, noting that the federal government is investing over €330 million per year in mental health.
Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides stressed that such visits foster a holistic approach to mental health at a time when the health crisis sparked by the novel Coronavirus has made mental health a priority.
It is important for political decision-makers to go to the field, noted Ms. Kyriakides, a psychologist by training, since that enables them to familiarise themselves with best practices.
Belgium, which is already seen as a pioneer in the field of mental health, plans to place psychological care at the centre of the Council of the European Union’s concerns when it becomes its rotating president in 2024.
Thanks to compulsory health insurance, the reform in Belgium enables patients to benefit from fast access to affordable, high-quality pyschological care, at prices ranging from €2.50 to €11.00.
