Dr Hanne Bosselaers had already seen half a dozen patients by the time the young man came in. The patient worked both as a driver and a building worker to support his family. He’d broken his wrist on his construction job. After examining him, Bosselaers told him he would never regain full mobility and that resuming his main driving job would be impossible.

The man felt guilty. But Bosselaers reassured him that he shouldn’t. As a doctor at Medics for the People (MPLP) in Molenbeek, one of Brussels’s most working-class neighborhoods, her approach is different than a normal doctor’s.

“It’s my role as a health worker to explain that it’s not his fault,” she said. “He is in a system that has big risks and that doesn’t protect him as a worker properly. These kinds of situations, where people don’t earn enough with one salary, have enormous consequences.”