2024-09-18 13:28:27
What lessons has the government learned from the Corona period? In a report, the Court of Auditors accuses the traffic light coalition of being inadequately prepared for possible future pandemics. There is a problem in one area in particular.
According to the Federal Audit Office, the Federal Ministry of Health is not only inadequately prepared for a new pandemic. The number of intensive care beds is “continuously decreasing” and there is still no new national pandemic plan. This is the result of a report by the Court of Auditors, which was sent by letter to the Bundestag’s Budget Committee on Wednesday. The 21-page document is available to t-online.
The audit results are entitled “The Federal Ministry of Health is not sufficiently prepared for future pandemics”. According to the report, the responsible Federal Ministry of Health under Karl Lauterbach (SPD) “cannot quantify the number of intensive care beds physically available, although this is, according to its own statement, essential for preparing for further pandemics,” the Court of Auditors complains. The auditors also denounce: “A fundamental revision of the National Pandemic Plan (NPP) has not yet taken place.”
The background to the audit report is the review of the corona pandemic. Back then, in 2020, Germany’s hospitals received a flat rate of 50,000 euros for each additional intensive care bed. According to the Court of Auditors, the states received more than 680 million euros from statutory health insurance funds.
“No lasting supply effects”
“Nevertheless,” says the report that has now been sent out, “the number of operational intensive care beds has been falling continuously since the end of the funding. The funding did not ensure lasting care effects.”
The Court of Auditors demands: “Work on the NPP must be consistently pushed forward. Reporting structures must be created for system-relevant equipment features of hospitals. (…) Funds not passed on to hospitals must be reclaimed from the states.”
The aim is to be able to effectively counteract future pandemics. To this end, comparable funding should be “designed economically”. “This requires appropriate control mechanisms,” writes the Court of Auditors. And: “Funding must always be designed to be sustainable.”
An intensive care bed is a specially equipped hospital bed that is usually located in an intensive care unit. Such beds are intended for patients who require intensive medical monitoring and treatment, often due to serious illnesses, accidents or after complicated operations.
Typically, an intensive care bed includes special monitoring equipment, such as continuous measurement of heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, ventilators and other emergency equipment should a patient’s condition suddenly deteriorate.
Intensive care beds are therefore very expensive. Depending on the equipment, the costs can vary quickly between 50,000 euros and 100,000 euros. In addition, there may be increased personnel costs for specially trained intensive care nurses and doctors.
When the pandemic began in 2020, it quickly became clear that Germany might need more than the approximately 25,000 intensive care beds that were available at the time to adequately treat all corona patients. In the short term, hospitals therefore had a legal right to a flat rate of 50,000 euros per bed for a limited period from March to September 2020 in order to create additional capacity.
According to the Court of Auditors, the approximately 681.2 million euros distributed in this context “should have mathematically led to an increase in capacity of around 13,700 intensive care beds”. However, this “cannot be deduced from the statistics and data collections”. From October 2020, the number of beds has been steadily decreasing because there is a lack of the necessary nursing staff.
The criticism of Lauterbauch’s ministry: “The Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) does not know how many of the approximately 18,600 intensive care beds that have been dismantled since then are still physically available.”
“The pandemic must be dealt with stringently”
At the same time, the Court of Auditors also criticizes the states. The BMG had expected that the subsidized beds would lead to a “permanent” expansion of care capacity – but: “The states did not consider this necessary.”
At this point, the Court of Auditors is on Lauterbach’s side: “The Federal Audit Office supports the expectations of the BMG,” the audit report continues. “Contributions from contributors’ funds to build up intensive care bed capacities should have a lasting effect beyond the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
However, this also requires a revision of the NPP by the Ministry of Health and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI): “Since March 2020, the RKI has supplemented the NPP with several so-called COVID-19 strategy papers. However, a fundamental revision is still pending.”
The Federal Audit Office had previously considered the preparations in the BMG for future epidemics and pandemics to be “not yet sufficient”. The Court of Auditors is sticking to this finding despite the ministry’s corresponding objections: “Work on the NPP must be consistently pushed forward. The COVID-19 pandemic must be dealt with stringently.”