Tanja Machalet, chairwoman of the Bundestag health committee and SPD politician, emphasized the need for a nationwide regulation on cost coverage for emergency rescue operations. She highlighted that fear of calling an ambulance should not prevent people from seeking urgent medical help. Machalet stressed the importance of advancing the federal government’s planned emergency reform swiftly to address this issue.

Machalet also pointed out the necessity of an initial patient assessment when calling the emergency number 112 to reduce unnecessary ambulance deployments. Currently, in North Rhine-Westphalia, cities and municipalities negotiate with statutory health insurers about the costs of so-called false alarms, where ambulances are dispatched but patients are treated on site. Essen has become the first major city to introduce a fee for patients in such cases, setting a co-payment of 267 euros for statutory insured individuals.