At the end of the year, Babenhausen lost three general practitioner seats

Unterallgäu / Babenhausen - What had been recognizable as a danger in the medical supply sky for years has now erupted in Babenhausen as a seemingly sudden thunderstorm: three general practitioner offices of Doctors Roth-Kreutzer, Wiehrer-Bauer and Bauer in Frauenstrasse 4 will officially close at the end of the year . This is "a huge problem" for the Fugger market, according to Babenhausen's Mayor Otto Göppel.

It didn't look so bad over the summer to find a succession plan. The negotiations with the MVZ in Krumbach were well advanced; According to reports, there was even an oral confirmation from there. On Tuesday, however, the official cancellation came. This development means a serious medical supply gap, not only for Babenhausen. After all, the three doctor's offices that will no longer apply will not only affect the citizens of Babenhausen. A total of around 15,000 to 17,000 people are supplied from the Fugger market. Fourteen general practitioners' practices in Memmingen and western Unterallgäu are already unoccupied. In a few weeks there will be seventeen unoccupied general practitioners' practices. The higher the workload for doctors and staff in the remaining practices will be.

Serious supply shortfall

According to Dr.

Wolfgang Schinkel from the general practice Heimertingen one has to assume at least 1,000 regular patients with at least one doctor's visit per quarter at each family doctor's office.

Then there are the irregular visitors who have no chronic complaints.

To determine the level of coverage required by the Bavarian Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KVB), a coverage of just over 1,600 people is taken as the basis.

A number that, according to District Administrator Alex Eder, does not adequately cover the actual needs in Unterallgäu and Memmingen.

He refers to the peripheral location of the supply areas Memmingen south and north, in which Babenhausen is also located.

Numerous patients from the Württemberg districts come to Unterallgäu and Memmingen.

Relaxation not in sight

The situation will not relax in the future either: In the Memmingen-Nord supply area, including Babenhausen, according to the KVB supply atlas, around 40 percent of general practitioners still practicing are currently over 60 years old.

Dr.

Schinkel from Heimertingen confirms the numbers.

He points out that the “control tools” in order to find and retain medical offspring need staying power.

If, for example, medical study places are awarded for a promise to later go to a family doctor's practice in the country, this could only take effect in twelve years at the earliest.

District Administrator Eder is also skeptical: There are “tools” that are available to politicians, but they are very soft and without any guarantee of success. “Ultimately, everything is regulated again by the market,” says Alex Eder.

As early as 2014, when the MVZ in Babenhausen closed, the community had to deal with the foreseeable shortage of general practitioners.

Improvements were already being discussed at that time, but could not change anything in the current development.

In the second part of the next issue, we will report on the reasons for the shortage of general practitioners in rural areas and on a new management tool.