Status: 11/10/2022 9:09 p.m
These are rules that hopefully will never be applied: the Bundestag passed the triage law. It regulates which patients are treated in the event of supply bottlenecks in the event of a pandemic – and which are not.
People with disabilities and the elderly should not be disadvantaged when treatment capacities in intensive care units are scarce in the event of a pandemic. The Bundestag has passed a law of the traffic light coalition for the so-called triage.
The term means that if there are not enough beds or ventilators, doctors determine who will be treated first. According to the law, the decision in such a case should be based primarily on the “current and short-term probability of survival” of a patient. Other criteria such as age or disability should not play a role.
No discrimination for people with disabilities
More pandemics and infectious diseases are to be expected, said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. Therefore, one must be better prepared, so the SPD politician. And he emphasized:
But in principle it must be clear that people with disabilities or older people are not disadvantaged even in times of limited capacity.
The law also expressly prohibits discrimination based on gender or origin. A so-called ex-post triage, in which the treatment of one patient would be discontinued in favor of another, is also ruled out. The Health Committee had made more specifics to the law this week.
Bundestag debates and votes on triage law
Anja Köhler, ARD Berlin, Morgenmagazin, November 10, 2022
Criticism from associations and opposition
Disabled associations on the one hand and medical representatives on the other had criticized the draft law. Some fear that the regulation is not sufficient to protect people with disabilities from disadvantages. Others fear legal uncertainty and consider parts of the regulation to be hardly practicable. Among other things, it stipulates that up to three doctors must be consulted for the allocation decision in certain case constellations.
Politicians from several parties expressed the hope in the Bundestag that this law would never have to be applied. The Union complained that the regulation should only apply to pandemics and not to natural disasters, war or terrorist attacks.
The AfD spoke of an encroachment on the part of the state. The law is an expression of a deep mistrust of doctors, who should be deprived of the opportunity to make decisions for the benefit of the patients with bureaucratic rules.
The Federal Constitutional Court had demanded rules
The topic of triage had come into focus during the corona pandemic due to full intensive care units. The regulation now implements a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of December 2021. The court ruled that the state has a duty to protect people from discrimination because of their disability.
The legislature was instructed to make provisions for this. So far there is no legal framework, but scientifically developed recommendations for doctors. The amendment to the Infection Protection Act that has now been passed still has to be passed by the Bundesrat. However, approval is not required.
Triage law in the Bundestag
Birthe Sönnichsen, ARD Berlin, 10.11.2022 11:19 a.m