Hesse: Long waiting lists for patients with late complications of Covid

In Frankfurt there is the next free date in 2023.

Hesse: Long waiting lists for patients with late complications of Covid

In Frankfurt there is the next free date in 2023. North Hesse is in the starting blocks with a special offer. But not everyone likes the post-Covid outpatient clinics at the university hospitals.

Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - According to estimates by the Frankfurt Post-Covid Ambulance, around 40,000 people in Hesse could suffer so severely from the consequences of a corona infection that they seek medical help.

The university clinics in Frankfurt and Gießen/Marburg have special contact points for these patients, in northern Hesse there is a separate outpatient clinic for children and young people, but the demand is high. And not all doctors find the special outpatient clinics good. The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians considers it a "business model".

In northern Hesse in particular, contact points for post-Covid sufferers are rare. The one on the Fulda (Hersfeld-Rotenburg district) alone offers a long-Covid consultation hour once a month. The children's center at Kassel Clinic has now launched an offer especially for children and young people with suspected post-Covid. The director of the clinic for pediatric hematology and oncology, Michaela Nathrath, says that the first patients are already being examined and cared for.

Demand is high: "Appointments have already been booked until October this year," she reports. A referral from the pediatrician is required. In a first appointment, findings and symptoms are then recorded in detail and the patient is examined. "If the suspicion persists, inpatient admission is carried out with a differentiated examination and the involvement of other specialist colleagues, for example from the fields of neuropediatrics or child psychosomatics," explains Nathrath.

It is currently being reorganized: In the future there will be a central office for the first contact, as the two senior professors report, the infectiologist Maria Vehreschild and the pneumologist Gernot Rohde. There, the patients are questioned and examined and previous findings are assessed. This first contact is "extremely complex," says Vehreschild. On average, the meeting lasts about an hour.

Depending on the focus of the complaints, those affected are then referred to specialized outpatient clinics in the hospital. Because breathing difficulties are particularly common, it is often pneumology, but cardiology, neurology, psychiatry and rheumatology are also on board. "The rush of patients doesn't stop," says Rohde about the long waiting list in Frankfurt. "As of now, we can only make new appointments at the end of the year at the earliest." He hopes that the new structure will ease the situation. "The goal is that we can then see at least ten patients a day." So far it's about half.

The problem with the post-Covid patients is that the disease is so elusive. "The list of symptoms is long and diverse," says Vehreschild: Shortness of breath, coughing and shortness of breath are obvious with a respiratory tract infection, but patients also complain of cognitive impairment, joint pain, mental problems or exhaustion. All other organs can also be affected.

"What we have trouble with are patients with diffuse problems," admits Rohde. Sometimes there is a strong overlap with chronic fatigue syndrome. "That can also be frustrating for the patients," adds Vehreschild. Anyone can be affected by post-Covid, says Rohde. Although the employees see "a certain correlation with the severity of the disease", young, healthy, sporty people are also there.

That too . In Gießen, for example, appointments are offered to clarify symptoms for patients with shortness of breath or stress restrictions after a Covid 19 disease in the general pneumological and infectiological outpatient clinic. "It is also possible to take part in a study funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to clarify shortness of breath/exercise restriction, in which somewhat more extensive examinations are carried out with a focus on the pulmonary vessels," explains a spokesman.

The waiting time for both is currently around two to three months. Examinations as part of the study are therefore offered for one to two patients per week. All regular appointments are open to post-Covid patients for presentations in the regular outpatient clinic.

"The need is there," said Social Affairs Minister Kai Klose (Greens) last week in Wiesbaden. "If the demand stays the way it is, I can imagine that the supply will be stabilized." However, since these are university hospitals, the Ministry of Science is responsible for financing. This supports the university post-Covid outpatient clinics in 2022 with almost 700,000 euros. The funding goes to the universities, not to the clinics, because research into post-Covid is being funded.

The medical director of the Frankfurt University Hospital, Prof. Jürgen Graf, currently sees no chance of expanding the offer. In view of the high workload of the employees, "I don't see that," says Graf. There is not only a great demand, "the patients also need long-term care afterwards".

One of the great advantages for all sides is that the ambulance fulfills a dual function, says Graf. She helps patients, but also research. "That is one of the great advantages of university medicine: that those who treat and see many patients are also scientifically active at the same time." Also: The doctors belong to a network of ten children's clinics across Germany that are dedicated to researching and treating long Covid in minors.

The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV) sees the offer critically: Even a university clinic "only cooks with water", in the outpatient clinics "no curative treatment" takes place, so the question arises "whether that makes sense at all: From the KV point of view, have We are dealing here more with a business model of the university hospitals. They benefit from the fact that medical laypeople in particular often believe that university hospitals can do something better than the standard providers in terms of standard care." In the meantime, however, the doctors in private practice also have extensive experience with Long-Covid.