The Augsburg nursing home Ebnerstraße is closed, the political processing of the nursing scandal continues. On Tuesday, the health committee of the state parliament dealt with the case, especially the SPD health expert Ruth Waldmann criticized the state government harshly: It is good that something is moving now and that the health minister has presented a five-point plan to improve care in Bavaria have. But the proposals have been on the table for years, and the problem has never been tackled with vigour. “It is tragic that only now residents have had to suffer again.”
The city of Augsburg had banned the home from operating at the weekend after deficiencies had repeatedly occurred during various checks over a period of months, which were apparently only partially remedied. Wound management in particular was a problem, as the responsible spokesman for the ministry now said in the committee. According to the health officer of the city of Augsburg, Reiner Erben, some residents of the Ebnerstraße retirement home were even taken directly to a hospital because they were feeling bad due to the lack of care. The home is run by the same Italian company that ran the Schliersee retirement home before it closed last year. At that time, too, there were wide discussions about what had to change in care in Bavaria.
Contact point should enable anonymous complaints
“I am shocked that we are now sitting here again and discussing the same thing,” said SPD member of parliament Waldmann, while representatives of the CSU and the Ministry of Health praised the authorities’ quick action in the Augsburg case. The opposition saw things differently. “They checked, then the media hit, then they reacted. That’s a point that bothers me a lot,” criticized Dominik Spitzer from the FDP. Waldmann emphasized that Minister Klaus Holetschek’s five-point plan consists of “all the proposals that have been rejected so far,” some of which have been discussed for years.
A care SOS contact point should enable low-threshold anonymous complaints about grievances. The ministry spokesman also stressed in the health committee that legal changes would be tackled to lower the hurdles for operating bans and to enable the supervisory authorities to intervene more quickly and efficiently in the event of abuses. Finally, the organization and quality development in the hospitals themselves should be improved.
From the ministry’s point of view, the anonymous contact point for complaints should help to improve controls. During checks, inspectors observe nurses at work, who then usually behave differently than in everyday life. One is therefore dependent on complaints in order to be able to take a targeted look. Kerstin Celina (Greens) urged rethinking the role of home supervision, which must advise, control and sanction at the same time. “It’s a near-impossible task.”