The city health department and the pediatric emergency practice at Marienhospital did not help her in her distress, the single mother of four children (10, 12, 14 and 18) told the GA on Tuesday, still audibly agitated on the phone. It was not until that day that she and her daughter found help from a pediatrician in Buschdorf.

Home remedies did not helpMother and daughter drove to the emergency practice, which is operated by pediatricians in private practice and is not to be confused with the children's emergency room of the Marienhospital, on Sunday. The 14-year-old's health has deteriorated rapidly. Now she is also complaining of chest tightness. "On Saturday I had tried home remedies, but on Sunday there was a fever on top of it. I didn't want to wait any longer," says the single parent. By then, the daughter had already had nine self-tests, all of them positive. Only in a test centre on Siemensstrasse, which the two also visited to be on the safe side, the result was negative.

Emergency practice was dismissive

"I was so unsettled and very afraid for my child, so I had called the emergency practice and they had told me to come by." Since the woman doesn't have a car or a driver's licence, she's glad a friend can drive them to the hospital. "She's been vaccinated and had no problem with it." She herself has only had one vaccination.

At the emergency room, she said, she and her daughter were not treated very kindly. "We were told to leave the hospital immediately, one of the doctors told me. I replied to her that we had even been asked to come." Also, the doctor had sent her away again after a short examination with the remark that there was nothing wrong with the lungs. And a PCR test could not be done in the practice.

On Monday, the mother called her family doctor. He told her that she had to contact the pediatrician where her daughter was being treated. The doctor also notifies the municipal health department, which the parent had also called beforehand. In the afternoon, the mother receives a call back from an employee of the health office, telling her that she has to be at the test centre on Gotenstraße at 8:25 a.m. on Wednesday, where a PCR test will be carried out for a fee. When asked how she was supposed to get there with her daughter, who most likely had Corona, without her own car and driver's licence, the mother reported that she was told: "I could take the child on public transportation. With a mask, that would be no problem." That stunned her, she said. "Everywhere you read, you should protect yourself, be careful, follow AHA rules, and then they send us halfway across town with a positive test result?“

Bushdorfer doctor helps

On Monday, she also tries to reach the pediatrician. From the automatic answering machine she learns he is on vacation and is represented by the Buschdorfer doctor. "Of course, I then immediately tried to reach the practice. It was busy all the time." It wasn't until Tuesday morning that she got through and promptly received an appointment for 11 a.m. for the PCR test, which she was allowed to take right away. Fortunately, her sister, who has also been vaccinated, has time that morning to drive them both there. "I was so wiped out and thankful that it made me cry." Before that, she says, she had felt pretty let down by the world.

In response to a GA inquiry, deputy city spokesman Marc Hoffmann explains, "The course of events described does not correspond to the usual procedure of the health department. The established procedure is that in suspected cases, people are registered for testing at the diagnostic centre. Typical symptoms and positive self-tests are suspicious of disease and should therefore be tested. In the event that a person to be tested is not mobile and symptomatic, the affected person is offered a mobile swab and this is reported to the diagnostic centre.

Since a 14-year-old adolescent can be assumed to be attending school, the health department considers testing necessary because of the possible need for investigation at school." The case will be "processed internally in a timely manner."

The director of Marienhospital, Daniela Kreuzberg, also responds to a corresponding inquiry by the GA: "We very much regret that the family had to make this negative experience." However, she refers to the independence of the children's emergency practice, to which one merely provides the rooms in the hospital. "However, we are very keen to resolve the incident personally with the family," Kreuzberg told the GA. She asked that the GA forward the mother the contact information for the head of pediatrics and adolescent medicine, since the hospital wanted to "clarify this incident in a personal conversation or by telephone." We have, of course, complied with this request.

Arndt Hilse, head of the Karl Simrock School in Endenich, just shakes his head when he hears about the story. The girl is one of his students, he said, and he had already learned of her possible infection from her mother over the weekend. "I know this mother to be a very responsible woman, she really handles the issue of Corona very carefully." On Monday, he said, he had the daughter's class tested, as well as that of her younger brother. They all came back negative, he said.

On Tuesday evening, the mother reported to the GA that the daughter was feeling better, but a result was not yet available. She also said someone from the health department had apologised to her. In any case, the whole family will remain in quarantine for the time being. Her eldest son has already been vaccinated, but she has hesitated with her daughter and her twelve-year-old son. "Now I'm thinking about having them vaccinated after all."

(Original text: Lisa Inhoffen/Translation: Mareike Graepel)