Female Physician in Munich Pens Email About Refugee Crisis-Unproven!
Summary of eRumor:
A female physician from Munich described in an email the challenge of providing medical care to refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries who have come to Germany.
The Truth:
We can’t confirm the authenticity of an email that was supposedly written by a female physician in Munich because the name of the author hasn’t been disclosed.
The email supposedly written by a female physician from Munich went viral after a Czech newscaster read it on the air during a broadcast that has gone viral.
In the email, the female doctor from Munich describes unsafe conditions for physicians and nurses in German hospitals because of demanding, angry and volatile refugees from Syria and other countries seeking care there:
In a hospital near the Rhine, migrants attacked the staff with knives after they had handed over an 8-month-old on the brink of death, which they had dragged across half of Europe for three months. The child died in two days, despite having received top care at one of the best pediatric clinics in Germany. The physician had to undergo surgery and two nurses are laid up in the ICU. Nobody has been punished.
The local press is forbidden to write about it, so we know about it through email. What would have happened to a German if he had stabbed a doctor and nurses with a knife? Or if he had flung his own syphilis-infected urine into a nurse’s face and so threatened her with infection? At a minimum he’d go straight to jail and later to court. With these people – so far, nothing has happened.
There haven’t been any local press reports about attacks on doctors or hospital staffs by refugees — but, then again, the email claims that local media has been “forbidden” to write about it. But that claim doesn’t check out. Some German media outlets have openly criticized Chancellor Merkel for supposedly contributing to the large inflow of refugees, so reports of a media blackout don’t check out, according to a Deutsche Wells press review.
Also, the idea that refugees are flooding hospitals and demanding medical care don’t mesh with German laws on providing healthcare for refugees. Asylum seekers in the country are granted limited access to medical care, EurActive Germany reports:
In most of the German Länder, asylum seekers are not allowed to go directly to doctors when they are in pain or call an ambulance after an accident. Instead, they are required to get a permit first from the appropriate authorities or the refugee centre.
This procedure is regulated by the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act of 1993. The goal of the law is to keep health-related spending low and limit incentives for asylum seekers in Germany.
Those who seek asylum in Germany are only given full coverage under statutory health insurance after spending 15 months in the county. Before that they can only receive acute care and have to receive special permission to visit hospitals.
UPDATE: A reader brought a newer version of this email to our attention. In that version, Dr. Barbara Sziraki is named as the German physician who wrote the viral email. After investigating, we’ve determined that Dr. Barbara Sziraki a psychiatrist who practices in Los Angeles. Her name and email appears to have been mistakenly attached to the email after she sent or received it.