What do the emergency centres 112 do?
Y ou can call the emergency centres 24h/24 and 7d/7 for assistance.
The operators and calltakers are always ready to help you when you are in distress. They reassure you, they tell you what to do and they prevent the necessary emergency services.
There is an EC112 and a Communication and Information Centre (CIC 101) in each provincial capital and in Brussels. In Walloon Brabant there is no EC112, therefore the surrounding EC112 take the calls from Walloon Brabant for the fire departments and the urgent medical assistance.
In total 650 operators and calltakers of the Federal Public Service Home Affairs work in the emergency centres. They are accompanied by medical directors and nursing regulators in the EC112 and police officers in the CIC 101. The operators and calltakers in the emergency centres treat every year over six million calls.
The job of operator or calltaker is not an easy job. They are professionals who need to be able to deal with stressful circumstances, to assess difficult incidents and to be communicative. After a basic training of 3 to 4 months, another training of several months at the workplace follows.
The emergency number 112 in Belgium:
In Belgium there are two important emergency numbers for urgent assistance:
- 112 for ambulance and fire department
- 101 for police
The emergency number “112” is the only emergency number you can call for free in all European countries when you need urgent assistance from the fire department, a medical team or the police.
When you call the emergency number 112 in Belgium for the police, you are redirected to the emergency number 101. Because of this, valuable time may be wasted. We therefore advise you to directly call the emergency number 101 for urgent police assistance.
The emergency calls in Belgium through the number 100 arrive at this moment in the same place as the emergency calls to the number 112: at the emergency centres 112 (EC112).