“Don’t throw around numbers”
Lauterbach’s family doctor alarm is poorly received
April 16, 2024, 12:01 a.m
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The Health Minister’s warning about an unimaginable shortage of general practitioners is not well received within the traffic light: The FDP warns Lauterbach not to throw around numbers like that. The Union reminds the SPD politician that he himself had canceled medical study places.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach from the SPD is also receiving criticism from within his own coalition for his warnings about a serious shortage of family doctors. The health policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Andrew Ullmann, told the editorial network Germany (RND): “It would be a mistake to focus exclusively on doctors working as family doctors. I also think it would be wrong if we started now “To build a new glut of family doctors and throw numbers around.”
Instead, Ullmann called for the attractiveness of medical work to be strengthened through de-bureaucratization and de-budgeting – also for outpatient specialists. In addition, it must be avoided that there is an oversupply of doctors elsewhere due to a lack of control, said Ullmann.
Lauterbach had previously alerted patients to major gaps in medical care. “We have not trained 50,000 doctors in the last ten years. Therefore, we will be lacking family doctors across the board in the next few years. We will be in a very difficult supply situation,” said the SPD politician on Sunday evening on ARD. Report from Berlin”. The future shortage “can’t really be imagined yet,” he warned.
Lauterbach: New law should help
Lauterbach referred to his planned law, which is intended to provide more secure local supplies. According to his plans, upper remuneration limits (budgets) for general practitioners should also be eliminated. This is important in order to attract young talent. If the budgets are eliminated, a larger proportion of young doctors will choose to become family doctors, said the SPD politician. “Even then, the shortage will be serious. But it has to come immediately.”
Union health politician Georg Kippels also criticized Lauterbach: “It is remarkable that Mr. Lauterbach is now warning of a shortage of doctors after he deleted the creation of 5,000 medical study places from the Health Care Strengthening Act.” The CDU politician said that an improvement in the situation could not only be achieved by establishing new study places, but also by creating new incentives for work in the family medicine sector.
The health policy spokesman for the Green parliamentary group, Janosch Dahmen, jumped to Lauterbach’s side and particularly criticized the distribution of medical capacities. “The causes of the current shortage are also largely due to the dangerous simultaneity of over-, under- and incorrect care in the outpatient sector.” He advocated strengthening family doctors as “guides for more targeted patient management.” Lauterbach wants to achieve this with the new healthcare law, for example by reducing bureaucracy and better financing for general practitioners’ practices.