Empty Maternity Wards Imperil a Dwindling Germany
(Fonte: New York Times)
FRANKFURT, Nov. 17 - It is a typical night in the maternity ward of this city's second biggest hospital and the loneliest place is the nursery. Empty baby beds are lined up against a wall like rental cars in an airport parking lot. A colorful mobile hangs hopefully over the still room.
With more than 1,000 beds, a team of doctors and midwives but only a few births a day, the Frankfurt-Höchst hospital has an abundance of everything except babies. [...]
"There will be 10 million fewer young people in my lifetime," observed Frank Schirrmacher, an editor at the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who has written a best-selling book about population trends in Germany. "Our whole infrastructure is designed for a bigger population."
Mr. Schirrmacher and other commentators conjure up a sort of reverse Malthusian nightmare: Germany as a land of predominantly geriatric towns and cities set in a deserted, creeping countryside. [...]
The number of deliveries at the hospital has been declining since 1995, when refugees from the war-torn Balkans swelled the numbers. This year, it will barely reach 1,800, or slightly less than five a day. By comparison... [Link to continue]
