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Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Because of the lockdown, the fear of infection in clinics and the limited medical care, a number of operations on children and adolescents have been postponed, according to a study by the DAK.
There were particularly sharp declines in March and April in the treatment of infections, eye and ear diseases and respiratory diseases, as can be seen from the DAK-Gesundheit children and youth report, which is available to the dpa.
Doctors therefore expect an increase in severe courses in chronic diseases in children.
Siegfried Euerle, head of the state of DAK-Gesundheit in Baden-Württemberg, speaks of a "risk of consequential damage".
According to a report from the health insurance company, almost every second operation on children and adolescents was canceled compared to the same period last year (minus around 46 percent).
Overall, hospital cases in the southwest have decreased by around 38 percent, three percentage points less than the national average.
The reasons for the corona dent were postponed treatments by the hospitals and fewer clinic visits due to parents' fear of infections, according to the study carried out by Bielefeld University.
According to the DAK, anonymized hospital data from more than 85,000 DAK-insured children and adolescents from Baden-Württemberg under the age of 17 were examined.
Their hospital stays from the first half of 2019 and the same period in 2020 were analyzed. The study is representative.
The report is based on data from 4.7 percent of all children and young people in the state.
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According to the DAK analysis, the supply situation for children and adolescents in the country's hospitals reached values again around two months after the lockdown that corresponded to those of the previous year.
Perhaps because of the contact restrictions, respiratory and infectious diseases were treated significantly less often in the hospital at the end of June than in the previous year.
With 650,000 insured persons in Baden-Württemberg, DAK-Gesundheit is the third largest health insurance company in Germany.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210215-99-443389 / 2
Children and youth report DAK