Whenever there is a grievance, one of the first questions people ask is who is to blame. It is often all too easy to find scapegoats. Apparently, this also applies to the state of care, which – everyone agrees – is definitely in need of improvement in Germany. “The press is to blame,” shouts a listener at a discussion event organized by the SPD local groups in Aschheim, Kirchheim and Feldkirchen. Others also complain that articles about care in the media always have a negative tone – only bad examples of institutions where a lot goes wrong are included in the reporting.
Everyone agrees on the podium: “Journalists are only interested in scandals,” says Michael Wittmann, Managing Director of the Bavarian Nursing Association. Good news about nursing? Didn’t get any attention.
“There is nothing to sugarcoat”: Hans Kopp, managing director of the workers’ welfare organization in Munich-Land.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
These claims seem paradoxical in view of the almost frightening descriptions with which the four experts on the podium themselves open the evening. “It’s abysmal for care,” says Wittmann. Hans Kopp, Managing Director of Arbeiterwohlfahrt (Awo) Munich, also reports: “There is nothing to sugarcoat,” the situation is dramatic. “Care has been at its limit for 30 years and it’s getting worse and worse,” summarizes Claus Fussek, who has been drawing attention to deficiencies in care for decades.
“If I listen to you, I could actually give up my job right away.”
According to the experts, one of the main problems is the lack of skilled workers. The staff is missing everywhere, reports Kopp. The reason for this is obvious to the discussion participants: “The working conditions are miserable,” said Fussek. He asks the audience not to go to the toilet for the duration of the event – this way one can perhaps understand how a nurse feels who often has to hold back natural needs due to understaffing. “The nurses can’t take it anymore,” says Wittmann. This can be confirmed by Gabrielle Schwacher, who has been working in the industry as a geriatric nurse and nursing educator for around three decades. Only recently, she says, within three days, four employees announced that they would be giving up their job for the coming month.
A maximum of ten minutes per patient: geriatric nurse Gabriele Sill.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Sill herself knows better times, she raves about the luxury of the late 90s, in which, according to her, there were sometimes seven employees available for 35 well-groomed people. At that time it was normal to be able to take three quarters of an hour for someone in need of care. “Today people have to be happy if they see someone for ten minutes.”
“If I listen to you, I could actually give up my job right away,” notes one listener who works in nursing herself. She says she is satisfied with her institution, the Kirchheimer Collegium 2000: “We do everything that everyone has the feeling of being able to contribute.” Nevertheless, in view of the descriptions of the experts, the question arises: what can the nursing staff do? There is no simple answer to this, as becomes clear in the discussion.
Prefer money for an SUV? Michael Wittmann, Managing Director of the Association of Nurses in Bavaria.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
The experts on the panel agree that the nursing profession must be made more attractive. She currently spends a lot of time in her daily work clarifying things, says the nurse from Kirchheim. Because she alone is not allowed to make any decisions about simple medical measures due to legal regulations. Something has to change about that, agrees Wittmann. “Unfortunately, this is often blocked by the doctors.” In order to get more young people excited about the nursing profession, it could also make sense to introduce a compulsory social year, says Kopp.
Overall, the system needs to be reformed, Wittmann notes. Building new homes is not very effective – most people nowadays no longer want to go to such a facility anyway, but prefer to be cared for at home when they get old. “That’s why we have to build more outpatient structures.” Ultimately, society must ask itself where its priorities lie. “The care should be at the forefront. We have to consider whether we should spend money on an SUV or rather invest it in good care.”
“We have to stop fighting each other”: care critic Claus Fussek.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Money is often the key question, as Fussek also notes. Far more than 50 percent of the nursing facilities are in stock market-oriented hands, so profit is often a central idea. There is certainly dignified care: good facilities mobilize their residents and ensure that they can do more independently again. But bad care, which requires many measures, is sometimes more lucrative.
And then there is the media, which seems to ignore the good examples and only report negatively on care. However, Schwacher and Fussek then admit that it is often the nurses themselves who badmouth their own profession. There is a lack of solidarity within the industry, people disagree among themselves, says Fussek – for example between inpatient and outpatient care. “We have to stop fighting each other,” confirms sill. Fussek can finally offer an optimistic outlook: “If this solidarity were to succeed, nursing would be the most powerful professional group in the world.”