Care in Bavaria: The need is getting bigger – Bavaria

“I hope you brought a little time with you,” says Bettina Plettl on the phone and laughs sheepishly. “I do not know where to start.” Then the head of the Medivital nursing service in Bad Birnbach, Lower Bavaria, takes a breath and talks about the perfect storm that is brewing over her industry right now – and that could severely damage care in Bavaria. “I’ve been in the business for 25 years, but I’ve never experienced anything like this,” says Plettl.

The wind is whipping the care providers in the face from several directions, as she lists: First, the payments from the Corona rescue package ran out in the summer, although the burden of the pandemic is increasing again. “Since then I’ve been stuck with the costs for breathing masks, protective equipment and corona tests,” complains the company boss, whose around 60 employees have to be tested several times a week – and therefore have a positive result more often than in other professions.

Bettina Plettl, head of the Medivital nursing service, is worried about energy prices: “We save where we can, our offices stay cold. But we can’t just turn off the heating for the patients.”

(Photo: private)

At the beginning of September, the statutory tariff obligation for skilled workers in geriatric care took effect. This is good news for your employees, because their wages are increasing on average. But Plettl estimates that her wage costs will increase “by around ten percent. And that’s even though we had already paid many surcharges and special allowances before that”.

The massive increase in energy costs also hit like a bolt of lightning: a letter was recently received from the gas supplier, she reports. The gas price for the office should increase ninefold – from 1,500 euros a year to 11,200. In the day care facility, in which patients are looked after by staff during the day, the heating costs should even rise from 3,400 to 27,000 euros. “We save where we can, our offices stay cold. But we can’t just turn off the heating for the patients,” says Plettl. It’s already too cold for some.

Medivital cares for around 150 patients in the district of Rottal-Inn, most of whom are cared for at home by the family and supported on site by Plettl’s outpatient nursing staff. Which would name the next problem: Plettl’s team drives from house to house in twelve cars, each vehicle covers an average of 30,000 kilometers per year. With the currently high fuel prices, a stately fuel bill comes together.

“It’s just messing up all the costs for us,” says the boss. “I get scared and anxious when I think about the coming months.” Plettl not only speaks for herself when she warns of the immense burden. As deputy state chairwoman of the Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA), she is also familiar with the situation in other companies in Bavaria, many of which are doing much worse. She predicts a wave of insolvencies in the coming year if associations and health insurance companies do not quickly agree on financial compensation.

“I believe that smaller companies in particular will soon be on their knees.”

The contracts with the payers were concluded at a time when the energy crisis was not foreseeable, they run until the end of the year. The nursing services want to renegotiate to cushion at least part of the burden. But according to Plettl, who is involved in the remuneration negotiations for the BPA, things are not looking good at the moment. “I believe that smaller companies in particular will soon be on their knees.”

The risk of a wave of bankruptcies is real, confirms Peter Bauer, care and patient officer of the Bavarian state government. “The situation is dramatic across Bavaria.” The member of parliament for the Free Voters fears that the nursing shortage will worsen massively if politicians and health insurance companies do not help the nursing facilities. That is why the federal government urgently needs to relieve companies of energy costs instead of creating new burdens with a questionable gas surcharge.

The care officer brings a Bavarian special fund into play

But the state government in Bavaria can also take action, the expert admits. “I advocate that the Free State set up a special care fund. We must not leave this vulnerable area alone.” There are no concrete plans for this, but the government commissioner is bringing a three-digit million amount into play, with which facilities in Bavaria could be helped through the crisis in the short term. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) announced his own relief package for companies and associations worth one billion euros – so why not support care, asks Bauer.

So far, however, the government has been pointing the finger at Berlin on this issue. Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) recently called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to “make aid for clinics, rehabilitation and care facilities a top priority” and finally to take the money into his own hands. There was no talk of a separate program in Bavaria.

But time is pressing, because the nursing crisis has long since had noticeable consequences for patients and their families. Many services are currently no longer accepting new care orders, and the costs for places in retirement homes are threatening to explode. The quality of existing offers is already suffering. As Bettina Plettl reports, her employees are now instructed not to make any free detours to the doctor or pharmacy to get a prescription or medication for the patient. These are private additional services that have to be paid for separately. “Often there isn’t even time for a coffee or a chat. Everything has to go zack, zack, zack.” Plettl says this with a mixture of regret and despair.

Peter Bauer, the Free State’s care and patient officer, also fears “that human closeness will be lost”. This is an important part of good care. And he warns of a development that often plays no role in the debate: it is mainly women who care for a sick or old family member at home. If professional help is lost, they would have to reduce their working hours or give up their job in order to take over the care. “The path to poverty in old age is already mapped out,” says Bauer. According to a study published on Tuesday by the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin, around one in four caregivers is at risk of poverty. For Bauer, this crisis is not just about care. For him, the welfare state as a whole is in danger.

source site