The nursing staff shortage affects the district’s clinics in Haar: Two and a half years after its opening, the newly established branch of the Heckscher Clinic for seriously ill children and adolescents was only able to put one of three stations into operation. The much larger Isar-Amper-Klinikum in Haar (IAK) is also sounding the alarm: The quality of basic psychiatric care in the Munich area is at stake. Forensics has long been overcrowded. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the number of patients is increasing as a result of the Corona and the move to the region. Hope lies in a new government in Berlin.
Empty beds in wards that cannot be occupied despite modern equipment: This is reminiscent of conditions in many day-care centers in which group rooms are orphaned because there is a lack of specialist staff to fill them with life. The consequences for parents are grave. The case at the small special unit at the Heckscher Clinic in Haar is still an exception. So far, psychiatric patients have been cared for in the Munich area. But the head of the hospital operations in the Upper Bavaria district, Martin Spucki, along with IAK managing director Franz Podechtl and other hospital bosses from all over Germany, warned that the situation could worsen nationwide. At a press conference on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Psychiatric Institutions Section in the Association of German Hospital Directors (VKD) in Haar, they appealed to politicians to make the nursing profession more attractive, to reduce study requirements for doctors and to prevent a “bureaucratic monster”.
Small units in particular are threatened with additional difficulties, as the IAK has built up in Munich and in the region with eight locations in order to be there for psychiatric patients decentralized, for example in Schwabing and Fürstenfeldbruck. A guideline on staffing provides for drastic budget cuts of up to 70 percent for professional groups if it subsequently turns out that even one hour in the care of a patient is not staffed. According to IAK boss Podechtl, even a case of illness in Fürstenfeldbruck could have serious consequences. Due to the pandemic, the regulation has been suspended for this year and next. After that, however, the sanction system jeopardizes small units that are not very flexible in terms of personnel, emphasize the clinic heads. Berlin must correct this, fight the shortage of personnel and better finance psychiatry.
In Bavaria, the psychiatry clinics are still relatively well positioned, they say. In spite of the impending budget problems, the district’s clinic operations want to continue the strategy of converting the large “clinic tanker” in Haar with many beds into a decentralized and largely outpatient operation. The corona pandemic has accelerated this development. Digital consultation hours were established. Today, patients are cared for as if they were on the ward at home. With the help of ward-equivalent units, the increase in patients can be absorbed with high quality without having to build on ward staff, says Podechtl.
VKD President Josef Düllings calls for more attention to be paid to how patients are after their discharge from the clinic. There is a lack of psychotherapists for this. “If a patient has to wait five or six months for a place in psychotherapy, then the drop is sucked. Then the patient goes back to the hospital.”