“People’s lives are really being played with”: the understaffing at emergency centers 112 and 101 is so dangerous

“We work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. without a second of rest. Minute after minute the phone rings. Toilet? That means walking to the hallway.” The understaffing at the emergency centers – both the 101 and the 112 – is reaching dangerous proportions. For example, in 2024, more than 41,000 calls to the 101 emergency centers in Flanders and Brussels were only answered after three minutes or longer, new figures show. Operators Veerle and Sandra paint a disturbing picture of the situation: “The citizen is in danger.”

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