Foreign healthcare workers looking to work in Belgium must now prove that they are proficient (i.e., have a B2 certificate) in at least one of the country’s official languages: French, Dutch, or German.
The new policy also applies to doctors, who must possess even higher speaking skills in one of the three national languages, Schengen News reports.
Belgian authorities announced such a measure in January 2024, aiming to ensure better health services, among other things. As cited by the Brussels Times back then, the outgoing Minister of Health, Frank Vandenbroucke, said that the language requirement is important to provide “safer and better quality care” for patients.
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.
Health Representatives Worry Foreign Healthcare Workers May Choose Places Other Than Belgium
However, the policy, which is now effective, was not well-received by the healthcare representatives amid fears that foreign healthcare workers will choose other destinations rather than Belgium.
The director of human resources at Cliniques de l’Europe, Arnaud Kamp, as cited by RTBF, considers this requirement a barrier, among other things.
Many countries have already implemented shortened procedures at the administrative level to allow the diploma equivalences of healthcare personnel in shortage to go faster. For our part, it takes time and having to add this constraint, we see it as a real obstacle or as a potential fear of candidates in relation to Belgium.
On the other hand, Minister Vandenbroucke considers Belgium to have standard requirements, as the RTBF further reported.
Mastery of one of the official languages is still necessary to be able to communicate with a patient, but also to be able to collaborate well in a team.
Belgium Needs Around 25,000 Nurses to Fill Shortages
Although the number of foreign healthcare workers in Belgium has surged over the past two years, it is estimated that the country is facing a shortage of 25,000 nurses.
In addition, the 2023 EURES report on shortages and surpluses identified 186 shortage occupations in Belgium, with some of them related to healthcare.
According to the report, some healthcare jobs facing a shortage of workers were nursing professionals, specialist and generalist medical practitioners, physiotherapists, pharmacists, healthcare assistants, and home-based personal care workers.
