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General practitioners in Thuringia: Alarming forecasts until 2040!
Thuringia is fighting against a shortage of family doctors; Forecasts show drastic undersupply by 2040. Primary doctor model is being planned.
General practitioners in Thuringia: Alarming forecasts until 2040!
Anyone looking for a family doctor in Germany could soon be faced with a real challenge. The Central Institute for Statutory Health Care predicts an alarming shortage of medical care in the coming years. By 2040 it is expected that medical availability in Germany will only reach 74% of today's level. This does not only affect Thuringia, where the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians speaks of 56 general practitioners who are urgently looking for a successor, while there are only six general practitioners available who would like to take over a new practice reports the MDR.
We are facing an explosive situation across the country: more and more family doctors are retiring and there are no new blood. According to an analysis by the Robert Bosch Foundation, around 11,000 family doctor positions will remain unfilled by 2035. Regions in Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony and Baden-Württemberg are particularly affected said the foundation.
A system in crisis
Demographic development also plays a crucial role. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation, a quarter of practicing general practitioners plan to leave the profession in the next five years, which will further exacerbate the situation. There is a risk of significant undersupply in many rural districts, and the pressure on medical care is also increasing in urban areas reports Deutschlandfunk.
The reasons are varied: Long working hours, high bureaucratic requirements and the desire for a good work-life balance attract many young doctors into employment instead of self-employment. In addition, over two thirds of the doctors surveyed complain about the burden of software and programs that make their work even more difficult.
Measures and counter-strategies
In order to counteract the impending shortage of doctors, the federal government is planning to introduce the primary doctor principle. This system is intended to control access to specialists through regulation and directly reduce the number of specialist appointments required. However, many fear that this will place an additional burden on family doctors: each family doctor could have an additional 380 to 2,000 new patient contacts per year, depending on the specific referral rules. This could put even more pressure on the already burnt-out medical profession warns the MDR.
A promising suggestion to improve the situation is regional health centers that would provide multi-professional teams. These centers could focus on needs-based treatment and prevention in order to meet the challenges of demographic change. Politicians are also reacting: vaccinations and treatments should be strengthened by non-medical health professions and by increasing the number of medical study places.
It remains to be seen whether these measures will soon take effect or are just a drop in the ocean. One thing is certain: primary care in Germany must be urgently secured in order to be able to continue to offer all citizens the medical care they need in the future.