Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – Less than a quarter of the beds in children’s intensive care units in North Rhine-Westphalia can currently be used due to the nursing shortage. Of the 301 beds set up nationwide, only 70 were available at the beginning of September. This emerges from a response from the state government to a small inquiry from the SPD parliamentary group, which is available to the “Neue Westfälische” and the German Press Agency. According to a listing by the danger prevention information system, only between 70 and 100 beds have been available depending on the month, out of an average of 300 beds since mid-2021.
In the administrative district of Düsseldorf, only 18 of the 82 beds in pediatric intensive care were available as of September 1, in the administrative district of Cologne there were 18 of 72 beds. In the administrative district of Münster, the ratio was 45 to 7, in the administrative district of Detmold it was 45 to 8. In the administrative district Arnsberg had 19 of 57 children’s intensive care beds available. In addition to the children’s intensive care beds, 543 beds are provided nationwide for special premature baby care (neonatology).
In the answer, NRW Minister of Health Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) attributed “the basic shortage of nursing staff” to the training behavior of the past few years. The ministry has therefore initiated numerous measures to increase training in the nursing professions.
The health policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Thorsten Klute, criticized in the “Neue Westfälische” (Saturday) that child nursing hardly played a role in the joint training of nursing staff in hospitals and in senior citizens’ facilities. Medical and nursing actions on children required a much higher level of care than on adults. “That puts even more pressure on the staff in child care than it already is,” says Klute.
