The shortage of antibiotics for children is now also showing up in clinics, which are usually better stocked with medication than doctors’ offices. The head of the German Hospital Society (DKG), Gerald Gass, told the editorial network Germany that the amount of work that the clinics had to do to procure medicines with supply bottlenecks was already “excessive”.
Gass spoke of an “alarm signal” if antibiotics or cancer drugs were suddenly no longer available nationwide in Germany.
So far, the hospitals have been able to compensate for the problems “through significant additional procurement costs”, but the head of the association emphasized that it will not be possible to solve the problems in the long term.
The DKG chairman confirmed the statements by paediatricians that children would be admitted to clinics because antibiotic treatment in outpatient care is not possible or only possible with a delay due to the lack of medication.
However, he spoke of “so far only individual indications” from the clinics of such a development. But the announcement by the Association of Paediatricians alone makes it clear “the problem we are facing,” Gass told the editorial network Germany. (AFP)