By Lydia Rosenfelder
From the government’s point of view, many patients are in the clinic unnecessarily! That’s why the traffic light wants to get hospitals to do more day treatments.
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (59, SPD) is certain: “Many patients want to stay at home.” Parents would also prefer to drive home with their child instead of spending the night in the ward.
Health economist Prof. Reinhard Busse (TU Berlin) confirms: “The number of inpatient treatments in Germany is extremely high (about 50 percent above the level in our neighboring countries).” And: For many patients, hospital stays are unnecessary! On average, cancer patients are treated four times in hospital, in neighboring countries only twice, so buses to BILD.
︎ The reason: Long stays bring more money to the clinics.
A consequence of the case-based flat-rate system. Because depending on the diagnosis group, the money rings in the hospital fund. According to Lauterbach, this gives the clinics incentives to treat as many cases as possible. The Minister of Health is therefore planning nothing less than the “start of a revolution in the hospital”.
The expert Busse also assumes that “day treatments are attractive for many patients”. For example, in the case of unclear complaints that are not such that the patient needs care. And in cancer treatments like chemotherapy.
The hospitals should be allowed to charge daily flat rates for this in the future. The Bundestag is expected to approve the project on Friday.
Christine Vogler, President of the German Nursing Council, is skeptical. Vogler to BILD: “Our nursing staff are completely overworked. Nothing changes when fit patients sleep at home. Because they don’t keep calling the night shift. It is more important that we no longer work with exploitative minimum staffing levels on the wards. We have to measure how many nurses you need to take good care of the patients in the hospital – and we have to do it bindingly.”
According to the law, such an assessment instrument should be tested. It is unclear whether it will be rolled out nationwide.