The German Nursing Council has criticized the planned Nursing Relief and Support Act as insufficient. All reforms would only aim to “save the system in a makeshift way,” said President Vogler of the Bayern media group.
The German Nursing Council has criticized the planned Nursing Relief and Support Act as insufficient. All reforms are only aimed at “making a provisional rescue of the system,” President Christine Vogler told the newspapers of the Bayern media group on Thursday. This also applies to the care reform by Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD), which the Bundestag is to decide on Friday. “This is not a law that secures the future. It is a very small relief, far too little.”
Instead, Vogler calls for comprehensive reforms. “We would have liked health care to be tackled as a whole,” she said. “In four to five years we will reach the tipping point.” Then so many nursing staff will retire “that we will never be able to fill this position through training”. With the law that has now been presented, politicians have once again “only thought until tomorrow. If at all,” she criticized.
At the same time, Vogler called for nursing care to be anchored in the Basic Law. The idea of a legal entitlement to a foster home is “exciting,” she said. “Because what is the counter-consequence if nobody is entitled to care? Then people might die of thirst at home because nobody is there. They would die or live lonely and isolated.” These are all the result of a lack of care. “Therefore, I think: Nursing care security belongs in the Basic Law.”
With his reform, Lauterbach wants to relieve those in need of care and stabilize the income from care insurance. Among other things, it is planned to raise the contribution to long-term care insurance by 0.35 percentage points, and even more for people without children.