WORLD / EUROPE
Germany to put forward draft law on fair triage care
Published: Dec 29, 2021 05:53 PM
A woman with a face mask selects dessert at the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Frankfurt, Germany, Nov. 22, 2021.Photo:Xinhua

A woman with a face mask selects dessert at the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Frankfurt, Germany, Nov. 22, 2021.Photo:Xinhua

The German government will present draft legislation to protect people with disabilities and preexisting conditions if overstretched hospitals are forced to decide who gets care, in line with a constitutional court decision on Tuesday, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said.

The court ruled that the constitution, which stipulates that people with disabilities cannot be discriminated against, was violated by the lack of government provisions to ensure fair treatment of disabled people if hospitals have to prioritize.

The ruling said lawmakers must act "without delay" to set out legally binding criteria to protect vulnerable people, but it did not say how that should be done. Nine people with disabilities and preexisting conditions had filed complaints at the court in Karlsruhe, as the coronavirus pandemic pushes hospitals to their limits. The complainants, who point out that they are at higher risk of becoming severely ill or dying from COVID-19, fear that due to their statistically lower level of survival they would always have lowest priority for an intensive care bed.

Guidelines from German medical organizations, including the DIVI association for emergency medicine, have identified probability of survival, taking into account the patient's frailty and existing diseases, as the main criterion for triage.

The director of the German foundation for patient protection, Eugen Brysch, told the Rheinische Post the ruling was long overdue.