Rumors out: Obstetrics stays where it is

Created: 01/02/2023, 08:00

By: Barbara Schlotterer-Fuchs

New Year's baby instead of New Year's baby: Little Sophia saw the light of day on the last day of 2022 in the Schongau hospital.

© Hans-Helmut Herold

The number of births at the Schongau hospital fell significantly after 2021 with a pandemic-related baby boom year: 522 women gave birth in the district in 2022.

The hospital GmbH emphasizes that they definitely want to hold on to obstetrics in Schongau.

District

– Almost 100 babies fewer than in the previous year saw the light of day in the delivery room in Schongau in 2022: 522 women gave birth in the district this year.

It was 621 after a pandemic-related wave of cuddles in 2021.

But even in 2020, despite the Corona closure of the maternity ward for a month, there were 548 more than this year.

In 2019 there were 571. If you take into account the figures published by the Federal Statistical Office at the beginning of December, the Schongau obstetrics department is still well behind the eight percent fewer babies that were born in Germany this year.

Discussion about the central hospital unsettles pregnant women

Why is it?

We asked the ten-strong team of midwives at Obstetrics Schongau.

Midwife Nadine Lachmann also speaks for her colleagues when she explains that the discussion about a central hospital and the citizens' petition for the preservation of the Schongau location would not have been particularly useful for obstetrics.

"People were really unsettled." The phone in the delivery room rang again and again.

At the other end, pregnant women “who asked whether it makes any sense to present themselves to us for the birth, since we are closed anyway”.

Many would only have found out after the birth that everything at the Schongau hospital, from the delivery to the care of the newborn and mother to discharge home, is still going as before.

The rumor mill is churning

In the gynecologist's practices, where the Schongau midwives look after pregnant patients, there were always skeptical questions.

The rumor mill: It's bubbling.

Lachmann speaks of constant insecurity in the midwifery team, of a constant uneasy gut feeling.

Is the hospital GmbH planning to relocate obstetrics to the Weilheim location?

Here, too, some information or misinformation has apparently leaked out.

Who knows?

One person who should know is sitting at the table during the conversation with the midwife representative: Claus Rauschmeier, deputy managing director of the hospital GmbH.

"We plan everything so that obstetrics can remain in the district." In the district?

If it were - purely hypothetically - the only way "that obstetrics can only survive in Wildsteig, then we'll go to Wildsteig".

In other words, obstetrics is obviously such an important concern for the hospital GmbH that they want to stick with it.

No matter where.

“Because home is definitely not a solution”

Rauschmeier put an end to the rumors about a move to Weilheim.

"Weilheim is definitely not a solution." Among other things, because things would not look very rosy at a Weilheim location, especially with regard to medical care in obstetrics.

Medical care is currently guaranteed in Schongau.

In addition, the Weilheim site is already bursting at the seams with the acute care of patients.

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My space

“Why should I now rebuild everything internally when I know the car will hit the wall straight away?

It would be nonsense to move to Weilheim now, the certain death of obstetrics.” However, Rauschmeier also makes it clear: “If we say in five years that obstetrics only has a chance in Weilheim, then things will look different.”

If the Central Committee comes, obstetrics will be integrated

And it can't be avoided: In this conversation, too, the topic of the central hospital comes up.

If there were a central clinic in the district, obstetrics would of course also be integrated here, explains Rauschmeier.

In view of the tight cash register at the hospital GmbH, the million euros that could have been given by the Free State would have been good.

But: As far as the funding program for midwifery in Bavaria is concerned, the number of births is "far away from the island of salvation".

As a reminder: If half of all newborns from the district are born in a district clinic, there is funding of one million euros.

So obstetrics remains a top-up business for the district.

"That's a fact."

Great midwives and nursing team

According to Rauschmeier, it is also a fact that "no matter who I speak to, people are incredibly satisfied with the obstetrics in Schongau".

He speaks of a “great team of midwives and nursing staff”, the equipment at the Schongau site is excellent, “a success story.

That's why we don't just look at the economy, we take money into our hands." This is the only way to think about midwifery, "otherwise it will die away from us.

We're attached to obstetrics.

And we will fight for it.”