Association of Democratic Doctors

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The Association of Democratic Physicians ( vdää ) sees itself as a relation to the corporately-oriented interest groups for doctors ( medical associations , the German Medical Association , physicians' association ) oppositional professional association. It was founded on November 9, 1986 in Frankfurt am Main . It emerged from the working group of oppositional delegates in the state medical associations. Politically, the association sees itself as a mouthpiece and association of doctors, psychotherapists and medical students who oppose the "medical professional policy" with a socially responsible care and health policy geared to the interests of patients. The vdää strives for an interprofessional cooperation with all professional groups in clinics, practices and public health care. In its work, the association refers to the connection between social conditions and illness and health ("Illness cannot be cured without politics").

organization

The chairman from the establishment until 2003 was the Frankfurt orthopedic surgeon Winfried Beck . His successor was the Munich anesthetist Wulf Dietrich until 2017. There are currently five chairpersons with equal rights. The office is located in the Hessian Maintal. Nadja Rakowitz has been the managing director since 2006.

Within the association there are various working groups on the above topics (e.g. the working group inpatient care). Medical students also work in the vdää and represent the vdää and its health policy goals through events and campaigns at the medical faculties. There are no regional structures of the association in the narrower sense. However, in Hesse, North and South Württemberg, South Baden and the Munich area, there are “lists of democratic doctors who sympathize with the politics of the vdää”. Members of the vdää are also active in the health group in the Berlin Medical Association . These lists are associations of doctors who compete in elections for the respective regional medical associations.

Essential goals

  • a medicine that is oriented towards the interests of the patient and the goal of good working conditions for employees in the healthcare sector
  • the same quality of medical treatment for people of all walks of life, d. H. Rejection of any form of " two-class medicine "
  • Demand for uniform citizens' insurance
  • Criticism of the increasing commercialization of medicine
  • Abolition of the flat rate per case (DRG - Diagnosis Related Groups) as the financing basis for inpatient care
  • Circumcision of the influence of the "medical industrial complex" (pharmaceutical and device industry)
  • Advocate for the preservation of the "informational self-determination" of the patients in health care and medical treatment
  • Promotion of social, ecological and political engagement by doctors
  • Promotion of alternative forms of care in outpatient care
  • Solidarity support for participatory health movements internationally
  • Unrestricted medical care for refugees
  • Engagement in the peace movement

activities

The vdää took a critical position in many media-relevant debates, such as the billing behavior of doctors in private practice, the willingness to strike in collective bargaining and rationing plans (so-called prioritization), as well as the commercialization of the health care system. Furthermore, the vdää is an active member of the alliance “Hospitals instead of factories” and advocates citizens' insurance for everyone.

The association also works with its sister organization, the Association of Democratic Pharmacists (VDPP). Further cooperation partners are: MEZIS , medico international , attac , IPPNW - International Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War - Doctors with social responsibility . Since it was founded in 2011, the vdää has also been a member of the German Platform for Global Health.

The vdää magazine '' Gesundheit sucht Politik '' appears at least four times a year on different topics. A health policy forum takes place once a year.

history

The vdää sees itself in the succession of the oppositional medical movement.

Oppositional currents within the medical profession go back to the industrial revolution in the 19th century. On the one hand, medicine made advances in diagnostics and therapy through the application of scientific methods; on the other hand, the socio-economic conditions since the advent of wage labor required new responses from health and social policy. New health hazards from industrial work (machine accidents, poisoning by chemical agents, excessively long working hours), mass unemployment, impoverishment in poor working and living conditions ("You can kill a person just as easily with an apartment as with an ax", Heinrich Zille , 1858– 1929) are the problems that initially only a few “poor doctors” tackled. Johann Peter Franks (1745–1821) “Academic speech on the misery of the people as the mother of diseases” reflects this as well as the work and writings of Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), with Rudolf Leubuscher editor of the weekly newspaper “ Die medicinische Reform ”, as well that of his friend and colleague Salomon Neumann (1819-1908), who wrote in 1847: "Medicine is, in its innermost core and essence, a social science."

With the introduction of statutory health insurance (1883), doctors were faced with a new actor in health policy, the health insurance companies, which financed health care for their members (initially only factory workers) and contracted private doctors at negotiated prices, the so-called health insurance approvals. This intensified the competition among general practitioners. This competition was to be counteracted with the establishment of medical associations. That was the hour of birth of the medical class policy in Germany. In 1900, Herrmann Hartmann founded the “Protection Association of Doctors in Germany to Safeguard Their Professional Interests”, which shortly thereafter became “Association of Doctors in Germany to Safeguard Their Economic Interests”, accompanied by his statement, “Until now we have had doctors in our struggles ... insisted on the dignity and honor, I tell you money, money is the main thing ”- After the death of its founder, the organization was renamed in 1923 to the “ Association of Doctors in Germany (Hartmann Bund) ” .

The self-image of this association did not go unchallenged, an oppositional countercurrent formed, in 1913 the social democratic medical association was founded, from which the `` Association of Socialist Doctors '' (VSÄ) later emerged. The VSÄ promoted socially progressive projects such as sex counseling centers and health insurance outpatient clinics with employed doctors, tried to bring about a unifying effect on the health insurers and doctors in the interests of the social insured and actively participated in the resistance against the incipient German fascism and the mostly willingly synchronized doctors. Jewish doctors and their families were - e. Partly with the significant participation of medical representatives - victims of National Socialist "cleansing measures", which also affect Jewish and Communist employees in the health insurance companies. The VSÄ was already banned in March 1933, most of its members fled into exile (Palestine, USA, England, Turkey).

An important point of reference for the opposition stance of the vdää after its establishment was the denazification of the medical profession that hardly took place after World War II (see list of Nazi doctors and those involved in Nazi medical crimes ). The institutions of medical self-administration have been restored. Only the Reich Medical Association was banned as a National Socialist follow-up organization. With the exception of the Nuremberg war crimes trials, in which some medical perpetrators were convicted and punished by way of example, the crimes committed with the knowledge and with the significant participation of the medical profession remained almost completely unprocessed until the 1980s.

The formation and continuity of the association was also promoted by the student revolt of the 1960s and the health movement of the 1980s. The initiative to found the association came from the "List of Democratic Doctors" in the State Medical Association of Hesse, which was formed in 1976 . In 1983, the '' Lists of Democratic Doctors '' from various medical chamber districts founded a nationwide working group, whose office in Frankfurt am Main started work in the same year, wrote circulars and organized meetings. Founding members include Winfried Beck , Beate Schücking , Wulf Dietrich, Birgit Drexler-Gormann and Hans-Ulrich Deppe .

See also

literature

  • Beck, Winfried: Not befitting. Contributions to democratic medicine . Frankfurt a. M. 2003. ISBN 978-3-88864-375-0 .
  • Deppe, Hans-Ulrich: Illness cannot be cured without politics . Frankfurt a. M. 1987. Suhrkamp Verlag. ISBN 978-3-518-11391-2 .
  • Winfried Beck, Hans-Ulrich Deppe, Renate Jäckle, Udo Schagen (eds.): '' Doctors' opposition. '' Neckarsulm-Munich 1987.
  • Bernd Kalvelage: '' Class medicine - a plea for a social reformation of the healing arts. '' Berlin 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association of Democratic Doctors: Statutes. Retrieved December 15, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Deppe, Hans-Ulrich: Illness cannot be cured without politics . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1987, ISBN 978-3-518-11391-2 .
  3. ^ Association of Democratic Doctors: Programmatic Basics of the vdää. (PDF) (No longer available online.) November 25, 2012, formerly in the original ; accessed on December 12, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.vdaeae.de  
  4. ↑ Illness is a private matter . In: The time . No. 48 , 1996.
  5. ↑ We earn enough . In: Stern . March 26, 2003.
  6. ↑ Rationing plan provokes storm of protest . In: Der Spiegel . May 20, 2009.
  7. ↑ krankenhaus-statt-fabrik.de
  8. ↑ Heads against head lump sum . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . April 27, 2010.
  9. ^ Association of Democratic Doctors: Press release "Those interested in twisting the facts - Democratic doctors support citizens' insurance". (PDF) November 30, 2017, accessed December 15, 2017 .
  10. ↑ club democratic Medical Association (vdää) and Association of Democratic pharmacists and pharmacists (VDPP): Perspective Health - theses and proposals for the current health policy , VAS-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1998, ISBN 3-88864-251-5 .
  11. ↑ Publish the results of drug studies! Joint press release by VDPP and VDÄÄ dated December 7, 2009
  12. ↑ Doctors against Dr. Rösler's recipes ( Memento from August 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ plattformglobalegesundheit.de
  14. ↑ Heinrich Zille: "You can have someone with an apartment ... Retrieved on December 15, 2017 .
  15. ↑ doctors opposition: Encyclopedia of social and health services . Ed .: Rudolf Bauer. Munich 1992.
  16. ↑ Dr. Salomon Neumann: Public Health Care and Property. Critical and positive with regard to the Prussian medical constitution question. Berlin 1847, p. 64-65 .
  17. ↑ HEALTH INSURANCE / REFORM ACT: Money, money . In: Der Spiegel . tape 48 , November 26, 1958 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 15, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Deutscher Ärzteverlag GmbH, editorial office of the Deutsches Ärzteblatt: The doctor under National Socialism: The path to the Nuremberg doctor's trial and the conclusions drawn from it . ( aerzteblatt.de [accessed December 15, 2017]).
  19. ↑ Mitscherlich, Mielke: Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial . Frankfurt 1978.
  20. ^ Deppe, Hans-Ulrich: On the social anatomy of the health system, neoliberalism and health policy in Germany . 3rd updated edition 2005. VAS Verlag für Akademische Schriften, Frankfurt am Main 2005.