Enlarge image
Father with his son in a children's clinic: Lauterbach promises support
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
Pediatric practices are completely overflowing, there are no longer any vacant beds in many children's clinics, parents wait for hours with sick children in emergency rooms: medical care for minors is currently difficult in many places.
The federal government now wants to remedy the situation quickly.
"We will not allow the children who gave up so much in the pandemic not to get the care they need now," said Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) in Berlin.
Regulations are planned to finance more nursing staff in clinics and to better reward overwork in overworked practices.
In addition, measures are planned to prevent supply bottlenecks for some medicines.
Initially, further support is planned for pediatric practices and children's wards, which are currently overcrowded in many places due to a wave of respiratory infections.
In children's hospitals, for example, fee-based nursing staff should be able to be recruited and then billed 100 percent, according to the ministry.
For doctors in children's practices, additional services should be fully rewarded according to fixed prices - without deductions due to budgets with upper limits.
In order to make pediatrics more attractive for doctors, it should also be permanently excluded from the reimbursement budget.
If the previous help is not enough, further steps would be conceivable.
Lauterbach spoke of suspending planned interventions for adults, if necessary, “so that we can give the children the care they need”.
Parents can reschedule check-up appointments
Due to the tense situation, parents can now temporarily postpone certain check-ups for their children.
The U6 to U9 examinations for children up to the age of six can initially also be carried out after the scheduled times and tolerance times, as reported by the Federal Joint Committee of Doctors, Health Insurance Companies and Clinics.
This provides for an exemption valid until March 31, 2023.
Postponed examinations can therefore be made up until June 30, 2023.
However, the U1 to U5 examinations for babies must be attended at the scheduled times.
Delivery problems with medicines also affect children in particular, for example fever juice.
To counteract this, Lauterbach intends to present a draft law next week.
Currently there are also delivery bottlenecks for cancer drugs and antibiotics, he explained: “We have gone too far with economization in this area too.” The price played the sole role, the availability of medicines played too little a role: “We want to eliminate that .«
The professional association of paediatricians describes the situation in drastic terms – and calls for immediate government action.
"It is an indictment that medicines as simple as fever syrup are often no longer available," said association president Thomas Fischbach of the "Rheinische Post".
No quick remedy in sight for missing medication
According to Fischbach, the current wave of respiratory diseases is leading to a very high demand for antipyretic drugs such as ibuprofen or paracetamol.
Fischbach reported on desperate parents.
"There are not enough suppliers of such remedies because the fixed price regulation has led to production moving to low-wage countries such as India and China," said the pediatrician.
»There are now supply chain problems there, which in turn lead to supply bottlenecks.«
A quick fix is not to be expected.
Germany's top pharmacist, Gabriele Regina Overwiening, sees no quick end to the supply bottlenecks.
»As long as we have global crises, it will remain difficult.
300 to 400 medicines are currently difficult or impossible to deliver. Before the corona crisis, this figure was 110 per pharmacy.
It won't get better any time soon," said the President of the Federal Union of German Pharmacists' Associations to SPIEGEL.
Bringing the production of pharmaceuticals back to Germany is "a noble wish, but also a pious one," says Overwiening.
'I suppose no one would want to pay for that;
know-how would have to be retrieved, entire production plants would have to be set up.«
ptz/dpa
