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Child with neurodermatitis disease (symbolic image)
Photo: A3250 Oliver Berg / dpa
The highly controversial psychosomatic department of the children's and youth clinic in Gelsenkirchen is apparently at the end: According to SPIEGEL information, the department was closed and inpatient treatment of children with neurodermatitis and allergies was discontinued.
The "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" also has information about the closure.
The reason is the lack of demand on the patient side and thus the lack of economic efficiency.
The report cites the clinic's manager.
A spokesman for the clinic announced a statement to SPIEGEL for next Monday.
The Gelsenkirchen treatment concept had become known through the film "Elternschule", which was made in 2018 - and it provoked severe criticism.
According to this reading, sick children tyrannized their parents by repeatedly emphasizing their need for help.
Parents should consistently get rid of this kind of appropriation.
Investigation stopped
The treatment concept derived from this provided for so-called attachment separation training, in which the children - including babies - were sometimes not supposed to see their parents for several hours.
If the children cried or scratched themselves and injured themselves, the parents should still not react in certain situations, but rather show themselves dismissive.
The documentary film "Elternschule" interprets such measures positively as "loving and consistent upbringing". Critics, on the other hand, saw the child's well-being at risk and filed charges.
Investigations by the Essen public prosecutor were discontinued, however, and the clinic saw its treatment concept confirmed.
When the film was nominated for the Grimmepreis in spring 2020, the debate about the Gelsenkirchen concept boiled up again.
Earlier patients increasingly spoke up - sometimes with hair-raising descriptions.
In an interview with SPIEGEL, a mother reported that she was supposed to bring her six-month-old daughter to the so-called Mäuseburg, a lounge, during her stay in the clinic.
There she was supposed to lay the child without a blanket on the cold PVC floor: "There were only crying and desperate children and my baby was right in the middle."
Then she was asked to "leave the mouse castle quickly and without turning around".
When she picked up her daughter once from the room, the girl was "taken to another baby and sucked on his ulcerated ear".
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