Society - General practitioners urgently needed: 523 practices unoccupied
Hundreds of GPs are missing in Lower Saxony - the cities of Salzgitter, Delmenhorst, Meppen and Syke are particularly affected. According to the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Lower Saxony (KVN), 523 GP practices were vacant across the state on July 1, 2023. New owners are being sought for these practices. "Securing medical and psychotherapeutic care is becoming increasingly difficult," KVN Chairman Mark Barjenbruch told dpa. "In the long term, patients will have to be prepared for longer journeys and longer waiting times."
According to the KVN, anyone who decides to take over a GP practice in certain underserved regions can apply for grants of between 60,000 and 75,000 euros. For practices in Bremerhaven and Syke, doctors are even offered the prospect of a turnover guarantee.
There are 22 unfilled GP practices in Salzgitter, 18 in Delmenhorst, 17 each in Meppen and Syke and 15 each in Nordhorn and Cloppenburg. The tense situation also worries the President of the Lower Saxony Medical Association, Martina Wenker. "People in rural areas must not get the feeling that they are being left in the lurch," said the lung specialist from Hildesheim. There is a shortage of doctors everywhere, not only GPs, but also pediatricians and emergency doctors.
Both the KVN and the Medical Association have long been calling on the state to provide more places to study medicine. According to the KVN, the rural doctor quota introduced by the state government will not improve the situation in the short term. Noticeable effects can only be expected slowly after 2035.
The rural doctor quota provides for 60 study places in human medicine to be allocated by quota in Lower Saxony. This makes it easier for young people to study medicine if, in return, they commit to working as a GP in a region with too few doctors for ten years after completing their studies and further training.
Press release on funding calls by the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians of Lower Saxony (KVN) Medical Association of Lower Saxony on the rural doctor quota
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Source: www.stern.de
