A line has formed in front of the pediatric practice in Frankfurt, mothers and fathers have their children by the hand or in their arms.
The little ones cough, sneeze and whine - but the waiting room of the practice is already so full that there is not a chair left.
Many parents also wait outside because they don't want to bring more viruses and bacteria into the house.
It's enough for them that their kids are lying flat every other week right now.
Kim Bjorn Becker
Editor in Politics.
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Christian Geinitz
Business correspondent in Berlin
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Lucy Schmidt
Editor in the "Life" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.
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Heike Schmoll
Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.
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Even in Westphalia, the paediatricians no longer know how to take care of their little patients.
Pedro Andreo Garcia has had a pediatric practice in Münster for decades.
But what is happening right now the pediatrician has never experienced before.
"Two months ago, we publicly warned the pediatricians of the Münster practice network about the current situation," he says.
"Corona, RS, flu and other respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses spread extremely quickly." But nothing happened.
The wave of infections not only demands everything from resident doctors.
The situation in hospitals has also become increasingly critical in recent weeks.
Of the 110 children's hospitals surveyed, 43 had no free bed on a normal ward, according to a recent survey by the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI).
The concerns in the intensive care units were even greater.
At the time of the survey, only 83 intensive care beds for children were free nationwide.
"This situation is getting worse from year to year and is carried out on the backs of critically ill children," said DIVI Secretary General Florian Hoffmann.
Sometimes it is necessary to transfer children to other hospitals over long distances.
On Monday, the professional association of paediatricians warned that the current overload poses a risk for sick children.
"It is actually the case that the health of children and young people and also their lives are at risk at the moment," said federal spokesman Jakob Maske on Deutschlandfunk.
The politicians responsible are to blame for this, including Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD).
Maske said the healthcare system had been "driven against the wall" for years.
The little ones are suffering the most
The little ones are particularly suffering at the moment.
Those patients who are not older than three years.
You have to struggle with colds every winter.
Normally, 90 percent of children get an infection with the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV for short, in the first two years of life.
Every second toddler gets the disease twice.
Pediatricians therefore also see themselves as seasonal workers whose services are particularly needed in winter - when the virus spreads particularly quickly.
This year, however, the pathogens are encountering several years of young children who have had much less contact with viruses and bacteria than usual in the past due to the restrictions associated with the corona pandemic. Experts blame the immunological gap for
And that's where the problem begins.
"High-quality care for sick children is now reaching the limits of what is feasible," says pediatrician Garcia.
Not only in the city, but also in the Münsterland there is great tension.
This also applies to the rest of Germany.
"Emergency pediatric services are near collapse at rates of more than 160 sick children per 12-hour shift," Garcia says.
"We doctors in private practice can hardly get dangerously ill children in children's clinics." All of this is the consequence of the austerity policy in the care of children and young people at all levels.
There is a lack of nurses, medical specialists, doctors - and of reasonable fees.