German family doctors protest health minister's 'demolition plan' for primary care

Germany's family doctors have warned that Health Minister Nina Warken's (CDU) austerity plans threaten to derail the government's proposed primary care system.

"If the minister forces through her statutory health insurance savings law as it stands and slashes funding for family practices, we will never get this primary care system off the ground," Markus Blumenthal-Beier, federal chair of the German Association of Family Doctors, told the Rheinische Post (Friday edition). "The minister is undermining her own reform agenda. This is utterly reckless." He dismissed her plans as "completely clueless."

On one hand, Warken insists that family doctors "should take on even more responsibilities in the future," Blumenthal-Beier said, "but on the other, she is making drastic cuts in exactly that area." He called the savings law "nothing less than a demolition plan for family practices."

For patients, he warned, the consequences would be "a noticeable decline in primary care." Blumenthal-Beier urged the federal government to change course while there is still time. "We call on the entire ruling coalition to correct this mistake before it's too late."

Warken aims to introduce a so-called primary care physician system, in which family doctors would serve as the first point of contact, with specialist referrals permitted only afterward. A draft bill is expected to be presented later this year.