Healthcare

DoucheFLUX’s healthcare services include:

1. Free nursing care (nurse-led clinic / medical pedicure / foot bath / optician / physiotherapy)
2. Health promotion
3. Health advocacy
4. Hosting and accompanying trainees

Nurse-led clinic

The clinic is located in DoucheFLUX’s basement, close to the showers. Our nurse provides basic medical care and refers individuals to a doctor if necessary. She often works in tandem with the social worker who accompanies people for the administrative aspects of medical care. Partnerships with MediKuregem and ASaSo, coordinated by Médecins du Monde, also ensure that people in precarious circumstances can have free access to more extensive medical care.

  • Tuesday : 9.00 to 12.00
  • Thursday : 10.00 to 12.00
  • Friday : 9.00 to 12.00
  • Note: no consultation on Wednesday. On Wednesdays, DoucheFLUX is only open to women
  • No appointment needed BUT you need to register at the reception
  • Tariff: free of charge

Physical therapy

  • For women only: Wednesday from 14.15 to 15.00
  • For all:
    – Tuesday from 12.45 to 15.00
    – Saturday from 10.30 to 13.00
  • Note: Only by medical prescription
  • Tariff: free of charge

Optician

To be able to see clearly is fundamental to a person’s well-being; unfortunately it is not within everyone’s reach. This is why DoucheFLUX collaborates with an optician, who comes to the day centre once a month to offer her expertise to destitute people.

The service includes an eye examination and, if necessary, free (second-hand) frames fitted with new, basic corrective lenses (clear, hardened, plastic, single-vision) adapted to your eyesight, as measured during the eye examination.

Note that this is not about eye health. If you have an eye-health problem which cannot be corrected by wearing glasses, the optician will advise you to consult an ophthalmologist.

  • Second Thursday of every month from 10.00 to 12.00:
  • Next dates: 9 March 2023, 13 April 2023, 25 May 2023, 8 June 2023, 14 September 2023
  • If you cannot speak French, Dutch or English, please bring someone with you who can translate for you, so that we can help you efficiently.
  • Registration required at the reception on the day itself.
  • Tariff: €1

in collaboration with

Medical pedicure

Life on the streets is particularly hard on the feet: walking non-stop to avoid being noticed, sleeping with your shoes on so that your feet don’t get cold or stolen, keeping your shoes wet, this is the reality for our beneficiaries.

Medical pedicure provides in-depth care for foot and nail problems (corns, fungus, ingrown toenails, calluses, partridge eyes, calluses, etc.). You don’t need to have any problems to make an appointment.

  • INTERRUPTED UNTIL AT LEAST 10 APRIL
  • Registration required at the reception.
  • Tariff: free of charge

Treatment of small wounds

Every second Saturday, the Anderlecht section of the Belgian Red Cross comes to DoucheFLUX to provide basic treatment of wounds.

  • Foot baths, cleaning and dressing of wounds, etc.
  • Every other Saturday from 10.30 to 15.30:
    – March: 4 March, 18 March
    – April: 1 April, 15 April, 29 April
    – May: 13 May, 27 May
    – June: 10 June, 24 June
  • No appointment needed
  • Tariff: free of charge

in collaboration with

 

2. Health promotion

“AVEC ELLES”-project

Some women – particularly the most vulnerable – are sorely lacking in information on subjects that are important for their health. This is why Médecins du Monde teams set up information and prevention sessions for them. AVEC ELLES and its team of volunteers encourage the women they meet to maintain a link with the health system, but above all by giving them the opportunity to (re)become actors in their own health.

  • INTERRUPTED

in collaboration with

FARES – Tobacco consultations

Are you a smoker? Do you want to stop? You have already tried on your own but without success?
Meet Eloïse and Bérengère, project managers for smoking cessation and health promotion at FARES Asbl.

  • every Tuesday from 10.30 to 12.30
  • by appointment (02/319.58.27)

    in collaboration with

Let’s talk about diabetes

A diabetologist intervenes with the public of DoucheFLUX to promote an adequate lifestyle to prevent or control diabetes. He carries out screenings and gives advice adapted to each case.

  • one day per month (Wednesday and Thursday, alternating)
  • Next dates : to be confirmed

Let’s talk about STIs and HIV

DoucheFLUX works in partnership with the Plateforme Prévention SIDA (PPS) to promote good protection practices and STI screening.

  • one day per month (Wednesdays and Thursdays, alternating)
  • by appointment
  • in complete confidentiality

in collaboration with

 

 

3. Health advocacy

Vaccination of undocumented migrants in Belgium

On 9 and 10 June 2021, DoucheFLUX collaborated with the MOBIVAX team (mobile team for the vaccination of homeless people), inviting them to our day centre, with the aim of opening up the possibilities of vaccination for homeless people. We communicated about this project as we were the first day centre to offer this possibility: we sent a mailing to the sector and put the information on our website.

Since many homeless people are undocumented migrants, we wanted to emphasise that vaccination was also open to them. This communication took an unexpected turn when the information was spread by people who do not have a residence permit either, but often have a roof over their heads – if they have any dignity at all – the “economic migrants” who manage to get by as best they can through their own networks and are sometimes hyper-connected, as is the case with people of Brazilian origin.

Understandably, hundreds of people jumped at the chance because our communication was the first concrete one to suggest that people without residence permits could also be vaccinated – some of them spent the night outside DoucheFLUX’s door! Moreover, they did not only come from Brussels but also from Flanders and Wallonia.

Of course, we were delighted to be able to welcome these people too, but we found ourselves in a difficult situation to manage. We wanted to help as many people as possible, regardless of their precarious situation. So, after several meetings, we were able to make the voice of this other population heard and obtain, from the authorities, a communication including undocumented migrants in the vaccination campaign.

Dental care project for vulnerable people in the Brussels-Capital Region

Supported by Cultures & Santé and Médecins du Monde, DoucheFLUX has designed and proposed to its partners, including the Brussels CPAS, an ambitious project to offer dental screening and care to people living in precarious conditions: this document presents the findings of a first screening campaign carried out with the help of the non-profit organisation Dentalmobilis and the solidarity dentist Michael Gabai.

This one-year pilot project will be evaluated by all stakeholders to decide whether it can or should be continued.

Main steps :

  • 1. Mobilisation of a maximum number of Brussels PCSWs to take part in this pilot project. Presentation of the project in January 2022 to the federation of Brussels PCSWs
  • 2. Presentation of the project to the federal minister Karine Lalieux, for agreement on the deviation from the AMU procedure
  • 3. Presentation of the project to the regional minister Alain Maron, for the financing of a coordinator post for one year
  • 4. Recruitment of the team (dentists and assistant)
  • 5. Rental contract for the mobile dentistry
  • 6. Launch of the project with the dental hygiene education programme (in partnership with the ULB)
  • 7. Evaluation, assessment and perspectives

in collaboration with

Dental hygiene promotion, in partnership with the HELB School of Dental Hygiene

This ONGOING project is being developed in parallel with a project on access to oral health care for the underprivileged. The idea is to intervene upstream of dental problems by raising people’s awareness of good dental hygiene and by training professionals in this preventive role with a public in a very precarious situation.

Prevention could also be considered in terms of diet, preventive behaviour by going regularly to the dentist and by correctly informing care professionals about existing resources allowing access to care (e.g. AMU, also valid for preventive care, CPAS network, FEDASIL, etc.)

4. Reception and supervision of health trainees

The medical service welcomes nursing trainees, specialisation or master’s students from various universities. An immersion in all DoucheFLUX services allows us to carry out a quality study, while counting on the help of our different partners for more specific questions. The trainees are supervised by our team and more particularly by our nurse.