2023-06-07 12:40:00
In Tournai, nearly 300 general practitioners took to the streets this morning. Their motive? Protest once morest the reorganization of the night guards. For several weeks now, calls to the emergency number 1733 have not been sorted… A change that considerably increases their workload.
Since February, the nights of these GPs have changed a lot: with two to three shifts per month, fatigue sets in. Especially since they receive unfiltered calls from patients. According to Vincent Parmentier, general practitioner in Beloeil, they changed a system that was working “very very good” for a visibly less efficient system. “Currently, one can be called up to ten times a night. (…) We no longer have sorting, so we are asked every night for anything“.
Being woken up between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. for trivialities is their new reality. “Once, it was a child who had pain in his fingers because he had bitten his nails too much. So you see how far it goes. When we have a big day on Monday, then we’re on call and we’re called for it, it’s not going well“, laments Jules Moulion, general practitioner in Mouscron.
Sometimes, it happens to Kathleen Dewaele to drive three quarters of an hour… For nothing. “They do not open or the visit is canceled while we are in front of the door“.
Another issue is the safety of doctors on the move. “Sometimes I ask my husband to come with me or, when I feel that the patient is too aggressive, I call the police first to find out if it’s wise to move.“, says Dominique Cardinal, president of the association of general practitioners of Tournaisis. “That’s all we can do preventively. We already have doctors who have been kidnapped, who have been attacked“.
This event also highlights a more general fear: that the profession no longer attracts. This trend can already be observed in Wallonia, where half of the municipalities have a shortage of doctors.
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