For Michael Witz, dialysis patient in Trostberg, Upper Bavaria, it was a shock: “On September 30, 2021 the KfH Kidney Center will be closed for economic reasons after 20 years,” said a message from the KfH Board of Trustees for Dialysis and Kidney Transplantation. The abbreviation “KfH” stands for the original name “Kuratorium für Heimdialyse”. Patent attorney Witz has been treated as an outpatient at the Trostberg KfH center since 2015, and he has been dependent on blood washing since 2019. “My kidney only has seven percent residual function,” he says. He now has to undergo dialysis three times a week for a good five hours. After that, he is not allowed to drive a car himself. But now he should switch to other locations, which, in his opinion, can only be reached with considerable effort “due to the poor transport connections”. With a parliamentary petition, the 64-year-old wants to encourage politics to take care of the matter.
His open letter, in which he also addressed Health Minister Klaus Holetschek and State Parliament President Ilse Aigner (both CSU), has so far remained unanswered from Munich – probably due to the vacation time. The mayors of several surrounding municipalities have already reacted, and of course Trostberg’s mayor Karl Schleid (CSU). In their statement it says among other things: “Here short journeys are of great importance.” The alternative locations in Traunstein, Prien and Altötting offered by the KfH Board of Trustees are “not necessarily to be defined as close to home”. It should also not be forgotten that the patients are weakened by the dialysis lasting several hours. That is why they often need support from another person. And what definitely also plays a role for mayors: “A location in the district that has also offered jobs will be closed.”
The Trostberg Seniors’ Advisory Board also protested. His suggestion: to get another carrier for the dialysis. “It is with great concern that we note that Trostberg’s function as a focus of medical care for the northern district of Traunstein is weakened again – as has already happened with the refusal to establish an on-call medical practice at the Trostberg district clinic,” said a letter to the Minister of Health Holetschek.
KfH is a non-profit association based in Neu-Isenburg, Hesse, and describes itself as the oldest and largest dialysis provider in Germany. The board of trustees justifies the planned closure in Trostberg – according to a spokeswoman, the KfH center in Tutzing, Upper Bavaria will be closed at the end of the year – with a “continuously declining patient trend and high personnel costs”. The continuation of the nephrological consultation hours close to home as well as “the care of the currently 56 dialysis patients” is guaranteed, explained Stefan Fuchs as commercial director of the KfH kidney center Trostberg. And as far as the employees are concerned: They will be “mostly able to make offers for continued employment in one of the neighboring KfH centers”.
Fuchs hopes that “further treatment of the patients in the KfH kidney centers in Traunstein, Altötting and Prien will lead to a significantly better utilization of the structures there”. That sounds like a mockery to Joke and many of his colleagues. “They have a monopoly here,” he says, “I interpret the planned closure of the Trostberg center as an artificial shortage of supply, taking advantage of the patient’s predicament.” In addition to the petition, Witz advocates having the non-profit status of the KfH checked by the Hessian tax authorities.