If you live in Germany and dial '112'.....that gets you the ambulance folks. In simple terms....an emergency doctor and crew to react to your dire situation. If you ask a German to define the dire situation....then things get a bit wordy and complicated.
Some types of emergencies are obvious....like you fell down the stairs and have a broken leg. Or you ran off the road with your bike and you have a concussion. But there are folks who have some type of problem which might not really be an emergency, but it ends up with the doctor and crew there, and a trip to the emergency room.
There's a new bill drifting around the Bundestag....presented by the Health Minister (CDU, Jens Spahn). Under his wording, the emergency team or the folks on the telephone would be required to assess the situation, and then state for a 'fact'....that you are in dire shape, or you can wait until tomorrow and just visit your regular doctor (out-patient).
This is designed to lessen the number of folks showing up in emergency rooms. Numbers? None presented. The general chatter is that about a quarter of all folks in the 112-'bucket'....simply aren't in a dire situation.
Odds that it'll pass? Unknown. None of the other parties are talking about this idea much. Do the emergency folks want this power of assessing? That's unclear as well.
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