Healthcare: How long do you wait for an appointment with your family doctor?

“We will have a shortage of family doctors, you can’t even imagine it.” The Federal Minister of Health gave this gloomy prognosis Karl Lauterbach (SPD) on Sunday evening in Report from Berlin the ARD. The population has to prepare for a difficult supply situation.

According to Lauterbach, tens of thousands of doctors have not received enough training in recent years. “Therefore, we will be lacking family doctors across the board in the next few years,” said the minister. “Everyone will feel this.”

A similar result comes a study the Robert Bosch Foundation. According to this, around 11,000 family doctor positions will be unfilled in Germany in 2035. 40 percent of all districts will be underserved or at risk of underserving. The situation is particularly tense for people in Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony and Baden-Württemberg. In some districts, the number of general practitioners will decline by 50 percent by 2035.

“It will become increasingly difficult to get doctor’s appointments,” said Lauterbach. This is likely to affect not only acutely ill people, but also those who want to take part in diabetes prevention programs or have preventive examinations such as Check-up 35. In many places, the family doctor is also the first point of contact for problems in all aspects of life – including social or psychological ones.

The fact is: in many places, primary care is already anything but optimal. We’re interested in how you experience it: How difficult was it to find a family doctor, for example after moving? How far do you have to drive and can you get an appointment at short notice if you need medical help – or are you unable to get through on the phone at all? To what extent are the waiting times longer than before, or does your doctor take less time? Or are you worried about what will happen when your primary care doctor retires in the coming years? What specific problems has the shortage of family doctors already led to in your everyday life?

Write to us about your experiences using the form, in the comments or by email [email protected]. We want to publish selected articles on ZEIT ONLINE, anonymously if desired.