Report finds failings in Belgium’s treatment of French patients with mental illnesses

Serious failings have been noted since 2015 in 60 establishments in Belgium providing care for French people with mental disabilities, according to a report published by the French Court of Audit.

Those failings – obtained from 150 inspection reports – include: “physical or verbal ill-treatment, deprivation of food as punishment, lack of care sometimes leading to death, spoiled food, rationing of meals, poorly maintained or dilapidated buildings” and financial fraud.

Specialised establishments in Wallonia have been taking in French nationals for decades and their numbers have been rising steadily, with some 8,200 French nationals (7,000 adults and 1,200 children) now in care, according to the court.

The French court is calling for better controls, citing that the population of French citizens accommodated in Wallonia illustrates “the shortcomings of French provision”.

In particular, Wallonia takes in “complex cases” for which there is no solution in France: people discharged from psychiatric hospitals, young people who are unable to find places in adult establishments when they come of age, and people excluded from their centre because of behavioural problems, for example.

These disabled French citizens are covered by the French social security system and the French departments at an estimated cost of €500 million a year.

“The creation of establishments in Belgium, facilitated by the certainty of the knowledge financed by France, has attracted new entrepreneurs, some of whom are far removed from the medico-social field, to work alongside the incumbent operators,” the court said in its report.

Every year, failings within the system affect “around 20” of the 200 or so facilities that take in French nationals, the report said.

When questioned by AFP, the Association pour les Français en situation de handicap en Belgique felt that the report placed “too much emphasis on the shortcomings” rather than on the Belgian approach, which was “more effective and benevolent” than the French system.

“There have been shortcomings in Belgium, but standards have been raised and establishments have been closed by the authorities,” said the association’s president Isabelle Resplendino.

“Inspections are more frequent in Belgium than in France. The Belgian system focuses on education, whereas in France these complex cases are in psychiatric hospitals, on medication or in restraints.”