General Practitioners Association
Practices “on the gums” due to a wave of illness
Acute respiratory illnesses are clouding the run-up to Christmas in Germany. photo
© Philip Dulian/dpa
Corona, colds and even flu: the waiting rooms in doctor’s offices fill up quickly in many places. The General Practitioners Association is calling for a crisis summit to ensure primary care.
According to the Association of General Practitioners, the high number of infections in acute respiratory diseases is pushing practices to their limits. “We are currently experiencing exactly what we warned about in the summer,” said association chairman Markus Beier to the Germany editorial network. “The family doctor’s practices are once again running on this Gums – even though the flu season hasn’t even started yet.”
In many places, patients are no longer able to get appointments, waiting times are getting longer and longer, and there is hardly any time left for the treatment itself, says Beier. This is due to wrong political decisions in recent years. The head of the association again called for a crisis summit from Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to ensure primary care. Among other things, there needs to be a reduction in bureaucracy. “Otherwise more and more people will simply be left without a family doctor’s office.”
Corona, colds and flu are clouding the pre-Christmas period in Germany. Last week’s report by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) estimated that there were around 7.9 million acute respiratory diseases (previous report: 7.1 million) nationwide, regardless of doctor’s visits. After Corona in particular has dominated for a long time, the RKI recently announced the beginning of the RSV wave (RSV stands for respiratory syncytial virus infections). Now flu detections are also increasing significantly. According to the RKI definition, the flu wave, caused by influenza viruses, has not yet begun.