Childhood healthcare facing major issues - "Total breakdown": Prominent doctors seek aid for clinics; children's safety at stake otherwise.
A serious matter has arisen, one that concerns the welfare of young lives. In a stern appeal to the German government, leading pediatricians are calling for swift action to address the crisis in children's hospitals across the nation. The shortage of nursing staff has become so severe that sick children are not receiving proper care.
"There are overcrowded conditions in every single children's hospital," warns Florian Hoffmann, the newly-elected president of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine in stern. Hoffmann, a pediatric intensive care doctor at LMU Munich, describes wards being booked beyond their capacity. "The situation has been near its limit all year round, not just during the winter infection waves," he elaborates.
The consequences of this are dire. For example, Hoffmann explains, "it's possible for a child's tumor operation to be delayed four times. An operation like this cannot be held off indefinitely, as the tumor keeps growing."
stern has been extensively covering the crisis in pediatric medicine through a comprehensive focus. In their research, reporters discovered that the largest pediatric intensive care unit in Germany, Station 67 of the Medical University of Hanover (MHH), is facing this crisis.
Michael Sasse, the head of the department at MHH with 30 years of experience as a pediatric intensive care doctor, calls it a "disaster." He and his team are forced to prioritize patients based on severity due to the overcrowding, leaving other children untreated. "If I have a bed for three patients, I have to choose who gets the bed," he laments.
Beerbaum, director of the Clinic for Pediatric Cardiology and Pediatric Intensive Care at MHH, hints at the possibility of more nursing staff members leaving the profession due to the intense pressure, potentially intensifying the crisis. "The remaining staff is responsible for caring for increasingly severe patients as quickly as possible. There's no safe space left," he says.
Beerbaum implores German health policymakers, "Do we really want situations where we cannot help our children anymore? This is a question that needs to be asked, and society, politics, need to respond to it."
stern also sheds light on the case of a critically ill newborn whose treatment chain failed because of a lack of resources. The child passed away in a North Rhine-Westphalian hospital in February after doctors spent the whole night unsuccessfully searching for an available intensive care bed and a means to transport the child.
Based on recent Divi statistics, only 60% of the available children's intensive care beds in Germany can be utilized due to staffing shortages. The number of beds and clinics in pediatric medicine has significantly decreased in the past few years. There are currently 326 children's hospitals in Germany with around 17,500 beds - a reduction of a third compared to 1996. The number of cases to be treated has remained constant during this period.
The Vice President of the German Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ), Jörg Dötsch, who is also the Director of the Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine at the University Hospital Cologne, urges immediate action to reopen previously closed beds. "We need financial incentives for nurses to return to work after retirement or end their professional break, and increase their part-time hours. It would also be beneficial to implement flexible annual working time accounts, especially during the more demanding winter months, so that more work can be done."
Dötsch, together with his colleague Hoffmann of DIVI, pleads for funding and resources to be redirected towards pediatric medicine. "It has become clear that there's a need for pediatric and adolescent medicine to be prioritized," says Dötsch, who was also part of the "Commission for a modern and needs-based hospital care."
Hoffmann stresses the gravity of the situation, warning of a "complete breakdown" of the system if prompt measures are not taken. He also criticizes the newly-approved hospital reform draft by the German federal government, "I had hoped that the protection of children would be the foremost concern of the new reform. That the Federal Minister of Health and the federal government would say: Let's wait, children are of the highest priority!" Unfortunately, the draft does not meet those expectations.
"The children are the losers," concludes Hoffmann. "Money and resources have been diverted into adult medicine, where profits can be made. It's time for society, for politics, to decide where our limited resources should be directed and prioritize."
