There will soon be more training positions for nursing professions in the district town. The district office now wants to examine how this could be possible in concrete terms. This is also linked to a survey of care facilities in the district to find out what their training situation is like.
The background is a test application from the CSU-FDP parliamentary group in the district council, which was now on the agenda in the Committee for Social Affairs, Family, Education, Sport and Culture (SFB) – and which the administration would have liked to push again. The applicants had wished that one examines together with the district clinic, under which conditions the number of nursing training places can be increased as quickly as possible. In addition, it should be determined how many additional places in the district town are “sensible and feasible”. The applicants also wanted to check whether a one-year apprenticeship in Ebersberg is possible in addition to the three-year apprenticeship. Currently, the next location for such an assistant or helper training is in Erding. Last but not least, the CSU and FDP in the district council wanted to know whether the former savings bank building could be used temporarily to set up classrooms there.
There are 22 full-time positions vacant in the district clinic
At least from the point of view of the Ebersberg district clinic, the goals formulated in the application are largely reasonable – to the point of urgently necessary. Nursing Director Peter Huber referred to the already tense staffing situation in the clinic: arithmetically, 22.07 full-time positions are currently vacant. Normally, this means more work for the colleagues – and in the almost two years of Corona “everyone worked far beyond the normal limit”. Furthermore, the clinic will also lose staff due to the obligation to vaccinate. At least twelve people would definitely stop because of this. In addition, 46 colleagues will soon be retiring. Huber also cited a survey according to which a good third of all people employed in care are thinking about changing jobs.
The effort is developing in exactly the opposite direction, not only because of Corona. Mainly because of demographic change, much more staff will be needed in the coming years, says Huber: “The district will age.” According to current forecasts, not only will one third of people be older than 65 by the end of the 2030s, but it is also expected that one third of all patients in the clinic will be over 80 by the middle of the century. The trend is already clearly noticeable: “The need for care of our patients has been increasing for years.” And an actually positive development is also reflected in the need for personnel: medical progress. New and more therapies also required more – and more specialized – people to deliver them to patients.
Poaching nursing staff is associated with high costs
The best way to get this additional staff, the “silver bullet”, as Huber called it, is training at the hospital itself. if you have to pay agencies abroad. There are currently 25 training positions per year available in the clinic – with currently 63 applications. Huber assumes that if the number of places were increased, the number of applications would also increase again. Such an extension is “very urgent” in view of the need described – but currently not possible. More space is needed for this, according to Huber, as he explained using photos of the classrooms. However, the clinic currently sees no need in the area of helper training, as there is good cooperation with the Erdinger Clinic and its training center.
At least as far as the rooms are concerned, District Administrator Robert Niedergesäß (CSU) was able to announce relaxation in the medium term: Construction for the new central emergency room is scheduled to start next year, which will also include rooms for the nursing school. Actually, more places have actually been created in the Sankt Zeno Kirchseeon vocational training center. Unfortunately, there were problems with the funding regulations here: the school has to be close to the clinic, otherwise there is no money.
Jochen Specht from the demography department in the district office explained how the administration would like to deal with the application: Before you finally vote on the application, you should first “ask all training providers about the training situation in the field of care in the Ebersberg district”. For nursing facilities in the north and west of the district, the city of Ebersberg could be difficult to reach.
Johann Schwaiger, district master craftsman and CSU district councilor, nevertheless campaigned to approve his parliamentary group’s application for examination. From his experience with career-oriented internships, he can say that there is a great deal of interest in training in the nursing sector. But anyone who does such training and is dependent on public transport “is always on the move”. His parliamentary colleague Marina Matjanovski, who had initiated the application, pointed out that the recommendation to create more training places in the care sector was also formulated in the overall senior policy concept of the district.
Support also came from the other factions, but not for the idea of using the Sparkasse building. “The point can go, it’s already clear how the test will end: that it won’t work,” said Ebersberg’s mayor and district councilor Uli Proske (SPD parliamentary group). In the end, there were no dissenting votes for the test assignment, nor for the needs assessment in the facilities proposed by the administration.