Emergency Reform in the Bundestag: What the Vote Means for Patients and Rescuers

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Emergency Reform in the Bundestag: What the Vote Means for Patients and Rescuers.

Patients arriving by ambulance are piling up in the corridor of the emergency room. Free beds and treatment rooms are scarce, and many have been waiting in the waiting area for hours. Experts estimate that around 30 percent of patients don't actually belong in the emergency room at all – with a cold, a stomachache, or a sprained finger, they could have been treated just as well at an on-call emergency practice. On Thursday, the Bundestag wants to finally tackle this situation politically – with a reform on which the third government in a row has been working.

Why the minister sees politicians as having a duty

Federal Health Minister Carsten Linnemann does not blame patients for the overcrowded emergency rooms.

But it is we politicians who shaped the regulation in such a way that steering in the healthcare system does not work.

The reform is "long overdue," the minister said. His predecessor from the Ampel coalition, Karl Lauterbach, had already presented corresponding plans in September 2023; the black-red coalition is now taking up many of these ideas.

750 emergency centers with one counter for all

The centerpiece of the law: around 750 integrated emergency centers are to be set up at hospitals in the future. Anyone who arrives there registers at a central counter – where it is decided whether someone actually belongs in the emergency room or whether an on-call emergency practice is enough. Linnemann calls the law an "emergency guide for patients." Routing is also to be standardized over the phone: regardless of whether someone calls 112 or the on-call service 116 117, the screening will follow the same criteria. In a genuine emergency, an ambulance will still come; in milder cases, patients can be referred directly to an on-call emergency practice or connected to a video consultation.

This will make emergency rooms available again for the people they were made for: namely, for emergencies.

What specifically changes for rescue services

The reform brings significant changes for rescue services. Paramedics and emergency doctors will no longer be required to take patients to the hospital – in the future, they can take them to an emergency practice or treat them at home. They will be paid accordingly for this. However, this raises concerns among the major aid and rescue organizations about their own financial viability. The Secretary General of the German Red Cross, Christian Reuter, demanded on Tuesday that the law must not pass through the Bundestag in this form – otherwise "a good rescue system will become less safe." The Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe, Deutsche Luftrettung, and the Malteser had set up rescue helicopters and ambulances in front of the Brandenburg Gate to demonstrate for amendments.

Why the air rescue crews are pumping the brakes

Krystian Pracz of DRF Luftrettung puts the cost problem in simple terms: "Everyone notices at the gas station how high fuel prices are. We notice it too with the kerosene for the helicopters." Air rescue crews depend on international markets and cannot control their costs alone. At the last minute, the coalition amended the law once more to secure the funding of rescue services. Green Party lawmaker Janosch Dahmen, himself an emergency physician, sees "significant improvements over the current situation" and considers the amendment "feasible and appropriate." In the future, however, rescue services will have to prove their financial viability more transparently.

What the reform deliberately does not solve

Dahmen sees a danger the law does not address at all: if the savings package for the health insurers takes effect as planned, there could be fewer specialist appointments in the future – and desperate patients will end up back in the emergency room instead. "We will see many people who, in their desperation because they simply cannot find a regular doctor's appointment, will eventually not know where else to turn and then head to the emergency rooms." The federal government is therefore working on further structural reforms, such as a primary care model. But on Thursday, the Bundestag is only dealing with the emergency reform for now – with MPs expected to decide on its passage on the same day.

For the full report at Tagesschau