The health policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Andrew Ullmann, has rejected the proposal that parents should pay a fee if they take their child to the emergency medical service even though there is no medical emergency. “A fee could rather deter the socially disadvantaged and have no effect on those who can afford it,” said Ullmann on Monday. “What we need is health literacy and access to reliable information.”
The President of the Professional Association of Paediatricians, Thomas Fischbach, had criticized the fact that parents sometimes took emergency treatment with their children’s medical trivia at the weekend. As an example, he gave parents who went to the emergency service at the weekend because of “pimples on the children’s buttocks” because they didn’t have time during the week. “In such cases, I think it would make sense for the insured to make a personal contribution,” Fischbach told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
Focus emergency care on emergencies
“Emergency care needs to be focused on emergencies,” Fischbach said. It is a pity that politicians do not really dare to tackle the issue for fear of headwinds. “The scarce emergency resources are used again and again by cases that do not urgently require action,” he criticized. “This has to end.”
The German Hospital Society also criticized the move. “We don’t always need new proposals for more financial hurdles when using emergency care,” said Gerald Gass, the chairman of the board of the association. Rather, what is needed is “functioning patient counseling and control in order to be able to distinguish between real emergencies and trivial cases”.
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“Unfortunately, parents often lack sufficient health competence to be able to deal with simple illnesses without professional help,” said Gass. “This is where we have to start and educate and support the parents.” Building up economic pressure with fees and thus perhaps preventing parents from seeking help even in actual emergencies could have “fatal consequences”.