Pediatricians in Zurich are overloaded and threatened – this is what it looks like in Switzerland

There is still a lot to be done before Claudia* takes her four children to the doctor. “I’m not one of those moms who has a monthly subscription to the doctor and has to run there for every little thing,” she tells Watson.

The mother of four lives outside the city with her family and relies more on her mother’s advice than the expensive and time-consuming solutions of the healthcare system. “We don’t go to the pediatrician because of a mild fever or a small wound. But if a child has an earache for days, yes,” she says.

Claudia was lucky: she found a pediatrician’s practice in the neighboring village where she could house her offspring. But such situations are now the exception for families, as the “Zürichsee-Zeitung” writes. There would be a shortage of 100 full-time paediatricians, especially in the canton of Zurich.

“The situation is precarious,” Corina Wilhelm, a pediatrician from Thalwil and president of the Association of Pediatricians and Adolescents in Zurich (VZK), told the newspaper. Many practices around Lake Zurich are so inundated with requests that they only accept children and young people from the same locality. Some no longer have capacity for new patients.

Because the parents are sometimes so desperate, they resort to application letters with photos of their offspring to accommodate the children, according to the “Zürichsee-Zeitung”. In the canton of Zurich there have already been threats from parents whose children were not accepted by the practice.

Threats against pediatricians remain a rare phenomenon across Switzerland, says Marc Sidler, president of Pediatricians Switzerland (KIS), the professional association of pediatricians in practice. “We are not aware of any specific cases,” he said when asked by Watson.

Even application letters do not increase your child’s chances of placement. Sidler says, “The pediatrician either has room for new patients or he doesn’t.”

For the KIS president, one fact is that there are too few practicing pediatricians in Switzerland. However, he cannot give exact figures such as in the canton of Zurich. “There is an increasing shortage of pediatricians and general practitioners. The professional associations have been pointing this out for years. “But politicians are currently more concerned with regulating physician approvals rather than addressing the looming and sometimes manifest shortage,” says Sidler. Rural areas in particular suffer more from this than urban areas.

In the canton of Zurich there has long been a need for an advice center where parents can go. This is to prevent children from having to go to the doctor for minor problems such as coughing. Sidler emphasizes that such initiatives already exist in certain cantons throughout Switzerland. Health insurers would also offer such hotlines.

However, this cannot solve the lack of pediatric practices. Marc Sidler says: “Health insurers’ telephone hotlines certainly cover certain needs, but personal contact between the doctor and the child and family is essential in care, especially for very young children.”

*Name of editor known