German hospital's use of trained nurse anaesthetists angers doctors

The German private hospital group Helios Kliniken has come under harsh criticism for introducing a new system which trains anaesthesia nurses so they can partly substitute for anaesthetists. The model means that one doctor can supervise more than one operation at a time, a practice already common in other European countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands.

In 2005, a young patient had brain damage during an operation in one of the …