Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – As the future chairman of the conference of health ministers, Baden-Württemberg’s department head Manne Lucha (Greens) has asked Federal Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to give priority to caring for children and young people. It is about the situation in the children’s and youth clinics as well as the situation in the children’s and youth doctor’s practices as well as current shortcomings in the supply of medicines, Lucha wrote on Friday in a letter to Lauterbach, which is available to the German Press Agency. He suggested that Lauterbach report to the colleagues from the federal states on the activities of the federal government in the meeting on January 5th.
Lucha sees the federal government as having a duty to check whether the remuneration for paediatrics is attractive enough. Measures would also have to be taken “to address the discrepancy between the needs of child and adolescent psychiatry and the existing treatment capacities,” wrote the state minister. In his function as head of the conference of health ministers, which he will hold from 2023, he wants to work for a better staff ratio for nurses. “Good working conditions are the most important basis for keeping staff and recruiting new ones.”
In addition to clinics, the federal government must ensure that young doctors also set up their own practices or care centers for outpatient care for children and young people. It could be noticeably easier if certificates for sick children, like certificates of incapacity for work, do not have to be presented to the employer and the health insurance company from the first day, but only from the fourth, Lucha continued. “Incidentally, it would be good for innovative digitization in the healthcare system if such certificates as well as the electronic certificate of incapacity for work were to be transmitted digitally between medical practices, employers and health insurance companies.”
