healthcare
Intensive care physicians: Never experienced such a high level of sick leave
Christian Karagiannidis, President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine (DGIIN). photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
Flu, RS virus, corona and others: Many people are currently ill. The health system is overburdened in many places. Intensive care physicians are now hoping for the Christmas holidays.
According to the intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis, the sick leave in the population has reached historical dimensions.
“Sick leave in society is currently extremely high, I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said the President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine of the “Rheinische Post”. In many regions there are almost no more free intensive care beds. The main problem is no longer corona infections. “We are currently fighting a very wide range of diseases: flu, RS virus, corona and other respiratory diseases, plus the usual emergencies.”
Karagiannidis has hope for the holidays. “I am counting on the fact that we will soon be able to save ourselves for the holidays. Then the volume in the clinics usually ebbs away, the capacities in the hospitals increase again.”
DRK: More threats and attacks on health workers
According to the German Red Cross (DRK), health workers are increasingly dealing with threats and violence in view of the overburdened children’s hospitals. “There are increasing cases of threats or the actual exercise of psychological and physical violence against health workers,” said DRK President Gerda Hasselfeldt of the “Rheinische Post”. Parents sometimes have to sit for hours in the emergency rooms or sick children spend the night in hospital corridors, she complained. A short-term remedy is hardly possible. The nursing staff urgently need to be relieved.
Intensive care physician Karagiannidis is also a member of the Government Commission on Hospital Care. In addition to the bottlenecks in the clinics, the healthcare system is also struggling with bottlenecks in a number of medicines. Karagiannidis advocated that the state, in cooperation with local pharmaceutical manufacturers, produce certain medicines for stock so that they are always available in sufficient quantities. “It will be expensive for the country, but I find it worrying for a country like Germany that we have been struggling with such bottlenecks for a long time and that this shortage has become particularly acute this year due to the many infections,” said Karagiannidis.
“It’s an indictment of politics”
Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek spoke in the “Rheinische Post” for a top-level meeting on the supply of medicines. “The federal government should convene a summit with all the institutions involved before Christmas and look for solutions together with medical associations, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, pharmacists, pharmaceutical wholesalers and pharmaceutical companies,” said the CSU politician.
Because of the delivery problems with medicines for small children, the child protection association sharply criticized it. “It is an indictment of the politicians that there are not even enough medicines and antipyretics for the children,” said association president Heinz Hilgers of the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” (Saturday). “The federal government must now act as quickly as possible and procure medication. And it urgently needs to set the course so that such a situation may never happen again.”
Recently there were delivery problems with children’s medicines such as fever and cough syrups. Means for adults are also affected, such as cancer drugs and antibiotics, as Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) explained. In order to counteract problems, he has announced a draft law for the new week.