The Minister of Health, Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) and the government of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB) announced this Friday, an agreement has finally been reached in the Inami number saga. Here are the highlights.
A final entrance exam then a competition
A medical entrance exam will still take place this summer. It is scheduled on Tuesday July 5 and Saturday August 27, face-to-face and centrally in Brussels for all, at Heysel. The deadlines for registration are respectively set for Friday, June 10 and Friday, August 5.
But the 2022-2023 academic year will be a transitional year before a system change. An entrance examination (which will fix a limited number of winners among the best ranked) will have to be organized for students who will arrive in medicine and dentistry from 2023-2024. This must guarantee an adequacy between the number of students admitted to basic training and the federal quotas from 2029.
The surplus of Inami numbers is absorbed
Remember that an Inami number authorizes a doctor to perform, within the framework of social security, a series of services defined by the nomenclature for which it is expected that patients benefit from partial reimbursement. It is the federal state that sets the overall number of Inami numbers available. Then, there are sub-quotas by discipline established by the Community Planning Commissions. Since a limitation of the Inami numbers available was imposed for students doing their basic training in Belgium, the number of graduates on the French-speaking side outrun systematically the number of numbers to be assigned, fueling the anger of Flanders where the limits have been respected. An agreement was needed between the Communities to prevent this situation from continuing.
The agreement announced on Friday specifies that the historical surplus has been fully absorbed and that all possible surpluses up to and including 2027 are regularized without creating new “debt”. Students already engaged in their studies will therefore each receive an Inami number.
Except for the 2022-2023 cohort
On the other hand, in the event that the number of students having started training during the 2022-2023 academic year, following the last entrance exam, exceeds the quotas for 2028, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation must provide for a rapid mechanism (spread maximum over 3 years) of absorption of this surplus in its decree organizing the future competition. The quotas for 2028 are set at 711 for the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and 1058 for the Flemish Community.
From 2029, these will be able to evolve according to needs. To this end, the planning commission has the task of analyzing in detail and taking into account the impact of Covid and possible future epidemics on the supply of general practitioners, to carry out an international comparative evaluation of the supply of doctors, and more particularly general practitioners.
Pending the results of this analysis, it is however proposed to increase the sub-quota of GPs proposed for 2028 by an additional 10%. French Community, and from 1058 to 1104 for the Flemish Community.
In the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, essential guidelines had been set. A planning of the medical supply better adapted to the needs, paying particular attention to the disciplines in shortage and to a balanced distribution throughout the territory, the respect of the federal quotas aligned with the needs mentioned above and legal certainty for students. They are at the center of the detailed agreement this Friday.
