Hospitals urgently seek oncologists

Belgium is suffering from a shortage in specialists as the number of cancer patients increases, warns Manon Huizing, oncologist at Antwerp’s University Hospital. “There are eleven Belgian hospitals that cannot find an oncologist,” she told Het Laatste Nieuws. “Some vacancies were advertised over a year ago and haven’t been filled yet. And where they have, the oncologists have up to thirty patients in their care.” The list of vacancies advertised on the website of the Belgian Society of Medical Oncology grows longer every day, and Brussels’ Brugmann hospital has been looking for an oncologist since September 2011. “In Antwerp, the last two oncologists came from Argentina and Greece,” says Huizing. The shortage doesn’t mean cancer patients aren’t looked after, she insists, but it means an increasingly difficult workload for the existing oncologists.