Neubrandenburg (dpa/mv) - In the Mecklenburg Lake District district, hospital patients will no longer be transported home at night from November. As a district spokesman said on Friday, this practice will be discontinued from November 1st. The reasons for this are a lack of staff and the fact that night-time transport is not actually required by law and is also not common in other regions. The rescue service continues. In the future, normal patient transport should take place during the day if possible.
According to the spokesman, rescue workers who had previously been on such night transports were then absent from the rescue service at other times. For acute emergencies, solutions would be found with clinics in Waren, Neubrandenburg, Röbel, Neustrelitz and Demmin. In the past there have also been cases where the proportionality of night ambulance transport was disputed. In some cases, patients were also driven to other districts, which led to driving distances of up to 700 kilometers per night. With more than 5500 square kilometers, the district is the largest in Germany by area.
A spokesman for the district's own Demmin hospital regretted the decision. This will primarily affect older people who could be released to go home after being treated in the emergency room. However, the emergency rooms are not equipped to accommodate people there for longer in such cases.
