A good 5,000 participants come to the Catholic Academy for Professions in Health and Social Services in Regensburg every year in order to continue their education. The spectrum of qualifications on offer ranges from the hospital sector to inpatient and outpatient care for the elderly to advice on diabetes. But the corona pandemic brought massive burglaries to the training facility. “Courses have failed, normal operations can still not be carried out,” says Agnes Bachmann. She is also managing director, academy director and lecturer. Your problem: The academy urgently needs state support, comparable to the first rescue package for adult education centers. But apparently no ministry feels responsible for further training in nursing.
The State Chancellery thanked Bachmann for her “important contribution to maintaining services of general interest” and referred to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. “So far there has been no reaction from him,” said Bachmann. She also wrote to the Ministry of Health and Care. Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) reported that Bachmann’s letter had been forwarded to the Ministry of Economic Affairs – “with the request for immediate feedback to you”. Social Minister Carolina Trautner (CSU) for her part arranged to “examine the matter”. The Ministry of Culture announced that the Academy’s offer does not fit into the field of adult education, “because it is about vocational training, further education and training”. An employee of the Ministry of Health finally summarized in a letter to Bachmann that in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Economics and the Ministry of Social Affairs, “unfortunately no information beyond the facts you have described” could be given – i.e. no prospect of help.
Christine Fricke, responsible for further training in nursing at the Caritas Association in Augsburg, like Bachmann, urges further training institutions in the nursing sector to receive more state aid. Also in view of the situation that “the nurses are running away in droves in many facilities across the country” – burned out by the Corona crisis.