Does the hospital have a role to play in connection with violence against women?

On 27 October 2022, one of our colleagues, Teresa, a young nurse at the haematology unit at the Jules Bordet Institute, died under the blows of her companion. This dreadful news was felt as a genuine shock throughout our institutions and caused great sadness for all those who knew her and for all her colleagues. 

According to World Health Organisation estimates, "35% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence from their intimate partner or someone else in the course of their life."  Hospitals are environments where women are in the majority in many jobs and it is hard to imagine that more than one in three female colleagues have potentially been subject to violence, whether physical, psychological or mental.  As one of the biggest employers in the Brussels area and a major player in the health sector, our role is clearly to guarantee, within our hospitals, a working environment in which the health and safety of all are guaranteed. Above all, it seems to us essential that every woman employed within our institutions can find within the hospital a space where they can express themselves without fear or judgement. Whether it be the immediate superior, human resources manager, the nursing hierarchy, doctor, work psychologist, colleague... each relationship makes it possible to leave room to listen, to help and to show empathy. Let us take as much care of our colleagues as we do of our patients.    

An academic hospital is not just another "enterprise". On the contrary, it is an organisation that is solely defined by and lives for its mission for patients and the values of equality, respect and protection that are at the heart of its raison d'être. The hospital has a major role to play in society. In moving towards a society in which every woman can feel safe at home, in the street, on transport, in parks. Everywhere, day and night. As a hospital we have an important role to play in terms of public health and health education. Through its mission and the challenges it faces, the hospital is an actor in society. In the current debate, in the condemnation of violence against women that is no doubt one of the most important combats of our age, whatever form this combat may take, the Brussels University Hospital undertakes to:   

• Open up the public debate to encourage an ever greater place for women, by taking up initiatives to permit this participation, by facilitating exchanges between its institutions and by supporting proposed legislation such as "stop feminicide". 
• Always be ready to listen to women who are victims of violence and their friends and loved ones and to encourage free expression and discussion within the institutions themselves. We encourage each woman to inform our staff of her fears and experiences in the face of conjugal, psychological, physical or sexual violence. 
• Guarantee that all nursing staff at each institution within the Brussels University Hospital are attentive to the needs of each woman who has been the victim of violence and their loved ones, and to act with respect, empathy and without judgment. 
• To provide a complete service, a human support framework of quality for victims of violence, which is medical, paramedical, psychological and social.
• To support and spread among young people the gender equality message, boost awareness of the issue and strengthen our role in terms of health and sex education. 
• To participate in collecting data on the subject, as the figures and statistics in Belgium remain too vague. 
• As the ULB's University Hospital, to support the university in all its actions to combat violence to women that are undertaken on the university campuses. 
• To act today so that the future never again has to live through this. And may the future start now.