CDU health policymaker Hendrik Streeck has intensified the debate over medical care for very elderly people, calling for a fundamental shift in approach. “The reflex is often: extending life is always the highest goal,” he wrote in a guest article for the Rheinische Post. “But anyone who has ever witnessed a very elderly person fighting for their life in an intensive care unit knows: not everything that is medically possible is also acceptable from a human perspective.”
Streeck continued: “A minimally invasive heart valve replacement or the fifth hip prosthesis, procedures that are technically brilliant, legally secure, and lucrative, are carried out far too often without asking the decisive question: Does this improve life? Or does it only prolong suffering?” He said his concern was not about saving money, “but about sparing people something. How we accompany them responsibly in the final phases of their lives, instead of over-treating them because of misguided incentives.”
Streeck, who serves as the federal government’s drug commissioner, had already sparked controversy earlier this week with a proposal to limit the distribution of expensive medications to very elderly patients. Federal Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) disagreed: “This objective is not being pursued in the ministry,” she told Bild. A government spokesperson in Berlin added that it was clear Streeck’s position “is not our position as the federal government.”
He followed up again: in Germany, older people are not infrequently “operated to death” because the system creates the wrong incentives. “We need to invest in structures that enable dignity, instead of procedures that generate revenue but not lifetime,” he said. “Sometimes the greater form of care is not doing everything that is technically possible.”
From breaking news to thought-provoking opinion pieces, our newsletter keeps you informed & engaged.
