Residents of Belgium are advised to save for their retirements, when monthly incomes are suddenly cut in half and as nursing homes continue to raise their fees
The average monthly cost to reside in a nursing home in Flanders is €2,359, while the average monthly pension is €1,787 – a difference of €572. This gap has grown over the years and will continue to grow, causing great concern to Okra, an organization that represents senior citizens in the region.
The average cost to live in a nursing home takes for-profit, non-profit and publicly funded homes all into account. In Flanders, the most expensive nursing home is Belle Epoque in Knokke, which charges an average €4,980 a month. The least expensive is Sint-Jozef in Antwerp, which costs a mere €1,362.
Hidden costs
“Residents should not have to use more than 75% of their monthly pensions to pay for a nursing home,” according to Okra board chair Herman Fonck. This is especially true as the standard fee tends to cover room and board and care only, with other expenses coming on top of that – like medication, clothing and sometimes laundry service, TV or internet.
The good news is that every nursing home resident in Flanders has the right to a “care budget” – anywhere from €140 to €800 a month, depending on the level of care required. Still, everyone who can should plan to call on their own resources to bridge potential gaps in future care needs.
This also includes retirees who don’t (yet) need to live in a nursing home, says Ewal Pironet, journalist and author of a book on pension planning (together with VRT’s financial correspondent Michaël Van Droogenbroeck. “Most people can count on a pension that is about half of their most recent net salary,” he says. “That means you need savings if you want your standard of living to be more or less the same once you are retired.”
In terms of nursing homes, Pironet says that not everyone can rely on the sale of a house to help pay for the costs of residency. Even for those who own a home, if a partner is still living there, that asset cannot yet be transferred into cash.
There are 52 nursing homes in Flanders that don’t even conform to the minimum requirement of one caregiver per 10 residents
Herman Fonck of Okra
As for Okra, it points out that a more expensive nursing home does not necessarily translate to better quality of care, which is largely determined by the number of caregivers present. The average ratio in Flanders is 44 employees to 100 residents, but in some care homes, the number is as low as 10 or as high as 90.
And what stands out is that the for-profit homes, which are generally more expensive, have on average fewer caregivers per 100 residents than their counterparts. “There are 52 nursing homes in Flanders that don’t even conform to the minimum requirement of one caregiver per 10 residents,” says Fonck. “Almost three-quarters of those are for-profit homes.”