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Desperate call for help: major crisis in the BRK rescue service in Starnberg and the surrounding area

2022-07-24T07:18:15.699Z


The shortage of personnel in the rescue service forces the BRK to make a desperate call for help. Behind it are Corona consequences, many, sometimes unnecessary operations and a structural problem. The situation is so acute that the rescue association made a decision that was not legally intended.


The shortage of personnel in the rescue service forces the BRK to make a desperate call for help.

Behind it are Corona consequences, many, sometimes unnecessary operations and a structural problem.

The situation is so acute that the rescue association made a decision that was not legally intended.

County – The video lasts about seven minutes.

Four BRK representatives stand in front of an ambulance and speak directly into the camera.

Rescue service manager Bernd Kuchler says that emergency vehicles will soon be out of action.

It was “the hardest times in many years”.

His deputy Sophia Schremser says: "The holiday season is coming up.

As of now, we don't know how we're going to do it." Markus Möbius, deputy head of emergency services, says that you fight "every day to fill the duty rosters with life".

And Jan Lang, district manager at the Bavarian Red Cross, says: "This is the crisis for the rescue service."

According to BRK spokeswoman Karin Windorfer, the video that the Merkur editorial team received was "not intended for the public".

The call for help is aimed at potential volunteers who have medical training or who just know how to drive an ambulance.

The little film shows how dramatic the situation actually is these weeks.

The official press release with the subtitle "High workload, high sick leave, understaffed" naturally sounds more factual.

But it also shows that six positions (out of 61.3) are currently vacant in the rescue service.

And that the BRK, also because of the heat, currently has to drive four times as many missions as in the comparable period of the past few years.

A fictional but realistic scenario: A woman breaks her leg in Starnberg.

The Starnberg ambulance (when one is free) drives you two hours to the hospital in Bad Reichenhall – since the handles are also at the limit in terms of personnel.

The Starnberg vehicle is then missing, which is why one from Landsberg has to help out.

Then one from Memmingen jumps in there.

And so forth.

Everything takes longer.

80 percent of the operations are unnecessary.

Bernd Kuchler, head of the BRK rescue service in Starnberg

Rescue service manager Kuchler says: "When our vehicles have to go to Munich, they often don't come back.

A few weeks ago I was in the Ebersberg hospital after a mission in Munich.” Simply because Kuchler's ambulance was the next available.

In the meantime, the BRK Starnberg can no longer help out anywhere, it is more likely that vehicles will be shut down.

However, the emergency situation affects the special-purpose association for rescue services and fire brigade alarms (ZRF) in the districts of Starnberg, Dachau, Fürstenfeldbruck and Landsberg am Lech, says its medical director, Dr.

Michael Daunderer.

“All aid organizations are trying to fill the shifts by any means necessary.

That often only succeeds at the very last minute.” But in individual cases it is no longer possible – at least not in the way the law wants it to be.

Daunderer has now arranged for the emergency services to “temporarily deviate from the specialist quotas”.

This is what the BRK Starnberg reports in the press release.

In concrete terms, this means: Experienced paramedics replace the missing, more highly qualified paramedics.

Daunderer is aware that this measure is not legally required - and that he could have problems with it.

"As a doctor, I'm used to weighing risks against each other.

I consider the risk of deploying an ambulance with two less-skilled workers to be lower than the risk of a vehicle that is manned in accordance with the rules not driving at all or arriving considerably too late,” he says.

Paramedics have 520 hours of training and, in contrast to paramedics, often work part-time.

Medical director sees 'no light at the end of the tunnel'

Daunderer currently sees "no light at the end of the tunnel", but a structural problem.

The working group of social security institutions, i.e. primarily health insurance companies, finances the rescue services in Bavaria.

"They allow far too few trainee positions," says Kuchler, head of the emergency services in Starnberg.

And according to the district association, each one costs 150,000 euros.

"We had 85 applicants as paramedics this year - but only six training positions." The sad truth: there are enough young people who would do the job.

And some who do it for a while find they get more money in the hospital ER.

“They then migrate,” says Kuchler.

Managing Director Lang now wants to set up a task force to deal with the shortage of staff and “handle massive amounts of money”.

Kuchler, who would also like more jobs for technical management, points out an aspect that is extremely annoying from the rescuer's point of view.

"We have found together in the rescue association: 80 percent of the missions are unnecessary." The BRK moves out again and again to people who want to have their purulent fingers or back problems treated for a few weeks.

"Often we are the family doctor with blue lights."

Also read:

By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Starnberg newsletter.

You can find more current news from the district of Starnberg at Merkur.de/Starnberg.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-07-24

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