All healthcare providers in Belgium will soon have to be proficient in at least one of the country's official languages (French, Dutch or German), as the Federal Government is seeking to make it a requirement for the profession.
Public hospitals and emergency departments are already subject to language legislation and are required to offer bilingual services. As Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke considers this very important, the language requirement will now go even further.
"This is an important step forward for patients when it comes to safer and better quality care, but it is equally important for healthcare providers to speak one of our national languages," Vandenbroucke noted.
"In the future, healthcare providers will work in teams even more often than today and the importance of communicating with other healthcare providers will only increase," he said.
Language level depends on function
When applying for a healthcare provider visa, the healthcare practitioner will have to prove that they are proficient in at least one of the country's official languages. This proof will be a prerequisite to obtaining a visa and working in Belgium.
This may be a diploma for secondary, higher or university education in Dutch, French or German or a language certificate of a certain level of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (a European guideline to assess a person's language level).
The language level required will depend on the function of the caregiver; a nurse does not need the same language level as a doctor, for example.
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Additionally, every healthcare provider (including those already working in Belgium) will have to be sufficiently proficient in one of the three national languages at all times to provide quality healthcare: the knowledge of either French, Dutch, or German will become a focus when assessing the quality of the practice.
In both cases – for current and future healthcare providers – the overseeing committee that monitors compliance with this law can also act on patient complaints.
Foreign healthcare providers who come to reinforce a team in Belgium for one specific assignment, because of their exceptional expertise, will be exempt from this rule (e.g. a surgeon who comes to perform one specific procedure at the invitation of a Belgian colleague). In these cases, the Belgian healthcare provider would be responsible for communication with the team of healthcare providers and the patient.
