Bielefeld/Viersen (dpa/lnw) - Pediatricians in North Rhine-Westphalia have accused Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach of breaking his word in the acute crisis and have called for his resignation. On Monday, the minister promised in the Bundestag that every service provided by paediatricians would be paid for at fixed prices and that the budgets for this would be suspended "immediately", the professional associations (BVKJ) North Rhine and Westphalia-Lippe quoted the SPD politician as saying. Lauterbach broke his word on the same day. At the same time, the state chairman of the BVKJ North Rhine, Christiane Thiele, spoke of "infinite overtime" and "overcrowded" pediatric practices.
"If we don't know how our work is remunerated or we actually know that due to the budgets in NRW, no further activity will be remunerated," then the "commitment to continue to ensure patient care no longer applies ". This was emphasized by the professional association of paediatricians (BVKJ) Westfalen-Lippe in a statement on Wednesday evening. Chairman Marcus Heidemann urged Lauterbach: "Keep your promises and actually pay for services that are provided, or resign with decency."
Thiele announced: "Working for free has now come to an end." Services that the politicians do not allow to be paid for by the health insurance funds are no longer reasonable for the practices. Without quick clarification, there will be a call to “significantly reduce the range of care and, from January, to only have acute patients treated by emergency representatives in a few practices in a region.” The doctors would then have to rely on "the anger and desperation of the parents, who undoubtedly make it clear to the minister that he is endangering the life and health of our country's smallest citizens."
The associations accuse Lauterbach of having written to the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) and the statutory health insurance companies - the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds - in fact "behind the scenes" and got rid of his promise in the Bundestag: He had asked the two "constantly arguing bodies". to agree by January 20, 2023 that pediatricians should get more money now or later. With such an approach he destroys confidence in politics.
The German Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine warned on Tuesday that bottlenecks in pediatric medicine would worsen over Christmas and New Year's Eve. The chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, expects that the crisis in pediatric medicine will last until February.
