“Reward healthcare personnel who work overtime.”

“It is clear that we are going to release the pressure very slowly.” In the Zevende Dag television programme, Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon looked ahead to the reopening of companies from 4 May. He also called for homogeneous competence packages. “We have proven that it works well in education.”

Release the pressure slowly

Non-essential companies will also be able to reopen on Monday 4 May. Teleworking will remain the norm for those who can. “It is clear that we are very slowly releasing the pressure with the intention of being able to keep looking at the effect on the curve. The virologists and epidemiologists are giving us sufficient certainty.”

Rewarding the healthcare sector

Jan Jambon proposes to make overtime for healthcare personnel tax-free: “There are some segments of healthcare that are working overtime, and there are other segments where this has decreased somewhat. We definitely need to do something for the healthcare sector. I was thinking of making the overtime worked tax-free. In that way you reward the people who are working so many hours now.”

Defederalisation of healthcare

“The coronavirus crisis has taught us a lot, including that you are better off bringing homogeneous competence packages together on one level.” Jan Jambon in that connection argues for healthcare to be defederalised. Instead of trying to get the communities to organise everything jointly, he proposes to organise healthcare at the community level. “We have proven that it works well in education and culture. Good results are being achieved on both sides, although differently. Let’s continue with that model and not try to just patch everything together at the federal level.”