© Frank Abbeloos
Since September 1, 2021, 315,935 people in our country have already found their way to a conventional psychologist or educational psychologist in primary care. This was reported by Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit), after the figures were published on the ‘mental health dashboard’ of the Intermutualist Agency. “That indicates that the new convention is achieving its goal,” the minister said.
In September 2021, mental health reform came into effect. Vandenbroucke calls this “in addition to an unprecedented investment to make psychological care much more accessible and affordable, it is also a real system change, both in the approach and in the approach to our mental health care”.
Through the new convention, people with psychological difficulties for whom professional help is required can contact a conventional psychologist or educational psychologist. This can be done in a practice but also outside the walls of a practice, such as at the GP, at school, in an OverKop house, at the OCMW and in prison. The first session is completely free. From the second session, adults pay 11 euros co-payment per individual session, or 4 euros if they are entitled to an increased allowance. Group sessions cost 2.5 euros. Young people under the age of 24 can take advantage of this offer for free.
In Belgium, 315,935 people have already found their way to this offer: 108,348 young people and 207,587 adults.
“I am very satisfied with the figures we can present,” says Vandenbroucke. “The goal was to make access to mental health care as accessible as possible. We now see that important steps are being taken. People find their way to care, and vice versa, care is increasingly local and close to the living environment of adults, children and young people.”