Despite the countermeasures that have been announced, general practitioners and pharmacists are expecting a sustained shortage of medicines in the coming months.

"The measures now being discussed will only help to a limited extent in general practitioner care in the short term," said Nicola Buhlinger-Göpfarth, deputy federal chairman of the German Association of General Practitioners, to the "Rheinische Post".

“The delivery bottlenecks are very noticeable in the family doctor’s practices.

The general practitioners now have to invest a lot of time in order to switch medications, if this is at all possible.”

The North Rhine Pharmacists' Association also expects long-lasting delivery problems with medicines.

“It will take many months for the supply situation to improve.

We assume that the delivery problems will continue in 2023 and that other medicines will be affected," said association leader Thomas Preis of the newspaper.

"New drugs are becoming scarce every day: there are currently no funds for desensitizing allergy sufferers, which should only come in May - when the pollen season has already begun - but then you can no longer desensitize." The plans of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) are only " a drop in the ocean".

Lauterbach wants to better secure the range of important medicines, especially for children, against supply bottlenecks.

Key points for a law include new price rules.

This should make deliveries more economically attractive for providers.

The minister said on ZDF on Tuesday evening: “We have seen the problem for a long time.

We have to have some of the important active ingredients produced in Europe again.

And the only thing that helps here is the fact that the health insurance companies then have to buy from Europe as well.”

Higher drug prices

The President of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, called on Lauterbach in the "Rheinische Post" to only allow higher prices for children's medicines that are really relevant to the supply.

In contrast, the CSU health expert Stephan Pilsinger criticized in the "Augsburger Allgemeine": "Unfortunately, the measures do not go far enough either." detected.

The FDP health expert Andrew Ullmann said on Deutschlandfunk on Wednesday morning that Lauterbach had taken the right path with its key points.

"But now we have to take a close look at where the problems are." Ullmann called for a joint "supply summit" of doctors, pharmacies and the pharmaceutical industry.

"It's always bad to talk about each other.

It is much better if we talk to each other so that we can solve a problem together.”

The Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices sees one reason for the current shortage in the fact that some pharmacies and wholesalers have overstocked their warehouses and medicines were not available elsewhere.

It was to be assumed that there would be a distribution problem, it said a few days ago.

Another reason is that there are currently so many respiratory infections in children, which increases the demand.

Pharmacies and unions also see economic pressure and production in low-cost countries as factors.

In view of the overcrowding in clinics, the German Association of Cities appealed to resident doctors to keep their practices open longer.

"Please consider keeping your practices open after 6 p.m., on Saturdays and Sundays and on public holidays," General Manager Helmut Dedy told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Wednesday).

In the case of simple illnesses, patients should dial the outpatient emergency care number of the resident doctors, 116117, and not the number 112 of the local emergency services.

This is only for real emergencies.

In addition to Corona, other respiratory diseases such as the RS viruses in children are currently causing many serious infections and overloaded clinics.

According to the German Hospital Society, almost every tenth clinic employee is currently ill himself.