If the child is sick, parents often have to stay at home. Pediatricians are now calling for sick leave to be avoided in milder cases. Doctors’ practices are unsuitable as “prosecution authorities for employers’ associations”.
Pediatricians in Germany have called for an abolition of sick leave for children with minor illnesses. “Parents can manage harmless illnesses themselves,” said the president of the pediatricians’ association BVKJ, Michael Hubmann, to the “Ärztezeitung”.
Hubmann argued that it would amount to an “unnecessary use of pediatric resources” if pediatricians had to certify a harmless illness. “Above all, we simply cannot judge whether a parent has to stay at home to look after a child,” said the BVKJ President. “Absurdly, that’s exactly what the law requires us to do.”
Doctors’ practices are extremely unsuitable as “employer associations’ prosecution authorities,” Hubmann added.
Lauterbach promised Facilitations for parents
The practices also created unnecessary work with certificates so that children with minor health problems could go back to daycare or school, said Hubmann. He gave the following example: “A child has a mosquito bite. The daycare center says: The child has a rash. So I get the dad from his editorial meeting. He picks up his son and comes to my practice.” Such a scenario is “no joke, it’s everyday life and a social harm.”
Last year, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) announced relief for parents when applying for child sickness benefit. Until now, parents have had to present a medical certificate on the child’s first day of illness, if possible. In the future, according to Lauterbach, a visit to the doctor will only be necessary from the fourth day of illness.
At the end of last year, the SPD politician presented a key points paper with recommendations for reducing bureaucracy in the healthcare system.
Vera Wolfskämpf, ARD Berlin, tagesschau, March 28, 2024 11:39 a.m