Child psychiatrist Winterhoff: Further medication prescribed

monitor and SZ have internal lists that prove that the psychiatrist Winterhoff prescribed drug cocktails for children and adolescents. These include combinations that can cause severe side effects and long-term consequences.

Sebastian and Thorben are young men today, 23 and 24 years old. As a teenager, they lived for several years in a remedial youth welfare facility in the Eifel. Their names are on the drug lists given to the ARD magazine monitor and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ) were leaked. The supervising child psychiatrist of the house: Dr. Michael Winterhoff – media star and well-known book author.

He not only treated Sebastian and Thorben there, but between the end of 2010 and 2014 apparently many children in care with psychotropic drugs on a permanent basis. The drugs should help children control their aggressions and be available for therapy, says Winterhoff. The young men still remember the side effects today. “For me it was definitely drowsiness, tiredness, difficulty concentrating, an attention span of a fly, so to speak,” says Sebastian.

The facility does not deny that the children and adolescents were given the medication. According to a statement by the sponsoring association, not all of them received medication. Legal guardians and young people would have to agree to the medication being given. In addition, the health of the children and adolescents was checked once a quarter with blood counts.

In August had one ARDDocumentation revealed that Michael Winterhoff used sedative neuroleptics with the brand names Dipiperon or Pipamperon as long-term therapy in children and adolescents. According to many experts, this neuroleptic is usually given as an emergency medication, not as a long-term therapy. Michael Winterhoff rejects allegations about his diagnoses and his therapy. He had “only prescribed dipiperone and pipamperone in individual cases with a special indication”. He controlled the use of the drugs and their dosage with child psychiatrists.

The internal drug lists raise new doubts about this. They show that Michael Winterhoff has apparently prescribed even more drugs than previously known. Entire groups of children and adolescents have therefore received large amounts of psychotropic drugs over the years. The well-known Hamburg child and youth psychiatrist Dr. Michael Schulte-Markwort cannot understand this: “I am shocked at how pronounced this extent is in always the same diagnoses and always the same drugs, which one must assume that they are at least partially and probably largely not indicated was.”

“Difficult to understand from a therapeutic point of view”

The internal drug lists also suggest that Michael Winterhoff combined the two neuroleptics dipiperone and risperdal in many children. The pharmacologist Gerd Glaeske from the University of Bremen sees this very critically: “This is a therapy that I cannot understand at all. They are both neuroleptics. They have a similar spectrum of activity. They have different undesirable effects. That basically means it is for I find it difficult to understand from a therapeutic point of view, especially the long-term therapy of such agents that are not even approved as long-term therapy. “

Winterhoff leaves specific questions about the lists and multiple medication unanswered. Upon request from monitor and SZ, however, he communicates through his lawyers: “If our client has prescribed medication, this was always done for each individual medication after an examination and individual decision by the client and his team (…) with the involvement of the reference educator, the educational team and the home management as well as the parents or the guardian may have determined that there was a corresponding indication for the child. ” The prescription of drugs was also “never done in isolation”. Rather, it is “embedded in a comprehensive treatment consisting of regular examinations and therapy discussions”.

Drugs likely caused long-term symptoms

In the youth welfare facility in the Eifel, Sebastian was apparently given dipiperone for years, at times combined with Risperdal. Today, Sebastian suffers from muscle pain, hand tremors, and short-term memory problems, he says. His former roommate Thorben works as a cook in a country slaughterhouse, and his hands regularly tremble. He was often asked by people whether he was on alcohol withdrawal or had Parkinson’s. “When I have a knife in my hand, I often slip so that I can cut my fingertips here or ratchet a nail or something else.”

According to pharmacologist Glaeske, there is a high probability that these are consequences of long-term use of neuroleptics. “We are also familiar with this from other areas where neuroleptics are given for relatively short periods of time and movement disorders occur after a short time.” Winterhoff does not want to comment on the individual cases. Through his lawyers, he said: “It is not possible to answer your questions about specific patient histories. Our client does not consider it sensible to publicize details of the medical history of (previously) severely traumatized children”.

Unannounced controls are not mandatory

The question remains why the years of medication was possible under the eyes of the authorities. Despite regular complaints from children, parents and guardians, the authorities apparently did not intervene. In the so-called help plan discussions with custodians, educators and the youth welfare office, it is not prescribed that the medication has to be discussed. There is also no nationwide obligation to document the dispensing of medication in youth welfare institutions, as is legally stipulated in elderly care. Unannounced checks by the “home supervision”, i.e. the state youth welfare offices, are not mandatory.

After all, so-called ombudsmen, independent complaints offices, have been set up in most federal states, to which children, parents and guardians can turn with their complaints. With the entry into force of the Child and Youth Empowerment Act of June 2021, these were introduced nationwide. Experts see this as a step in the right direction. However, there is currently a lack of sufficient staff. In addition, the ombudsman’s offices have little influence and cannot enforce or control anything. They are only allowed to advise those affected and explain to them to whom they can address their complaints. The bodies that have already been responsible for specific controls or measures are still responsible. Exactly the authorities that have not always acted decisively in the past.