[Triage today: from treatment to nursing case (section 184 RVO). When clinical medicine capitulates prematurely]

It is assumed that it is necessary top distinguish between "nursing cases", patients home, and "hospital cases", patients needing professional medical treatment. As a result of improved medical treatment on the one hand and due to humanitarily-based decisions of the Federal Court of Social Jurisdiction on the other, it has become possible to turn "classical nursing-care cases" into "hospital cases" with successful therapeutic outcomes. Many of the ill are not able to benefit from the possibility of an alleviation of suffering, prevention of a worsening of their condition or the prospect of a lengthier life due to the fact that they have been labeled "nursing cases". The expansion of more promising therapies for the chronically ill or the old is blocked by medical insurances, which disclaim the necessity of hospital treatment; by doctors, who still adhere to antiquated therapeutic concepts (treatment of symptoms instead of treating the ill by diminishing afflictions and improving compensatory abilities) and due to an acute lack of hospital beds. The scarcity of hospital bedding and the restriction of medical interest in focusing on the acute ill often leads to a sorting out of patients, similar to a triage, by which chronically ill patients, capable of being treated, are allocated to the considerably lower level of care in nursing homes and in the home. As a consequence there is an increase in suffering, an aggravation of the illness and a shortening of life.2+ in addition to organic sciences.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)