In view of the overloaded children's hospitals, health workers are increasingly dealing with threats and violence, according to the German Red Cross (DRK).

"There are increasing cases of threats or the actual exercise of psychological and physical violence against health workers," said DRK President Gerda Hasselfeldt of the "Rheinische Post". Due to the shortage of staff and the time pressure, good involvement of the parents is often "only insufficiently possible, which in turn leads to loss of information, the accumulation of complaints and growing tension on all sides".

At the same time, Hasselfeldt complained that parents sometimes had to sit for hours in the emergency rooms or sick children had to spend the night in hospital corridors. A short-term remedy is hardly possible. The nursing staff urgently need to be relieved.