According to DIVI boss Karagiannidis, the lack of specialist staff in clinics is a greater challenge than the Corona crisis. He warns of a crash in the health system. The intensive care doctor therefore calls for a “structured migration on a large scale”.
Intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis believes that the expected burden on the healthcare system due to the lack of skilled workers is greater than that caused by the corona pandemic. “The pandemic wasn’t pretty, but compared to what we’re going to face in the next ten years, the problem was much smaller,” Karagiannidis told the Berlin “tageszeitung”. He therefore pushed for massive immigration.
“We will lose around 500,000 employees who retire in all professional groups every year,” warned the President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine (DIVI). Millions of jobs could not be filled because of this. “These workers are missing as care workers, they are missing as contributors – that is still completely underestimated,” said Karagiannidis. If something is not done now, “the health system will crash”.
As a way out, the doctor, who is also the head of a special center at the lung clinic in Cologne-Multiheim, campaigned for targeted recruitment of young people abroad. Otherwise the gaps in personnel could not be closed. “The only thing that would increase the workforce would be large-scale structured migration.” In countries with high birth rates and high youth unemployment, for example, young people could be brought to Germany directly after school.
“After the three-year training, they should decide for themselves whether they want to stay here or return to their home country,” Karagiannidis campaigned for a right to stay. “But that would have to be done quickly now,” he urged to hurry. At the same time, however, he expressed skepticism about the implementation: “Unfortunately, I don’t see that at all in the current political climate.”
