A resident is walking with her walker in the hallway of a nursing home.
Photo: dpa/ Jens Büttner
The “Haus am Kirchweg” is just as bankrupt as the Convivo Group. And with the Hansa Group, the third elderly care provider in Bremen recently got into economic difficulties. The economist Christoph Trautvetter is not surprised by such horror reports. Around half of Bremen’s nursing homes are privately operated. Regardless of whether they belong to a local founder, a multi-billion dollar “family office” or an international real estate investor – they are under high pressure for returns and growth, writes Trautvetter in a recently published short expert report entitled “Who owns the care for the elderly?”, which he commissioned made by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. »This causes quality defects and instability, as the current insolvencies show.«
Not only in the smallest federal state there are problems with the »private«. The owner-managed Convivo Group operates more than 100 care facilities throughout Germany. Shortly before, the Curata Group, which employs more than 3,000 people in 40 homes, had filed for bankruptcy. Many other examples could be given. So far, however, home deaths have mostly only received regional attention. This appears to be a nationwide trend.
In Germany, more than 950,000 people in need of care are cared for in over 15,000 homes. With almost 800,000 employees, inpatient care for the elderly is one of the largest areas of work. The majority of the facilities are run by non-profit and commercial sponsors. In the case of the latter in particular, collective agreements are a rarity, the Verdi service union complains. That is why she advocates a nationwide collective agreement that must be observed in all facilities, regardless of who owns them.
People also apparently distrust the existing care facilities, as a Forsa survey shows. When the survey was presented in mid-March, the health insurance company DAK, the Diakonie and the district council called for a tax subsidy for long-term care insurance and warned of the danger of a supply catastrophe.
The president of the nursing employers’ association, Thomas Greiner, contradicts this. The warning of a nursing collapse is correct, but it is incomprehensible that the reason for the supply catastrophe is being kept secret: “The deaths in homes are progressing, and outpatient services are threatened with deforestation.” It’s not about tax subsidies, it’s about the question: ” Who cares for those in need of care anyway?”
The background to the home deaths is the same everywhere. First of all, the corona pandemic caused a rise in costs, for example through protective measures; then occupancy dropped for months, impacting revenue. Politicians temporarily helped out with the tax-financed Corona rescue package, but this was folded in mid-2022. Energy and material costs have been rising rapidly for home operators since the second half of 2021. Since autumn, higher wage requirements have also been in place for permanent nursing staff and temporary work. The turnaround in interest rates has also recently placed an additional burden on all real estate investors and owners. In a legal opinion for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, lawyer Sebastian Baunack points out a fundamental problem. In the 1990s, the federal government opened up the elderly care sector to market competition and private-sector players. “But the federal legislature can also limit it to providers who are committed to the common good, as it has done in the field of youth welfare.” As long as he does not do this, it will be difficult for federal states like Bremen to adequately support providers who are committed to the common good .
The left in the Bremen Parliament now wants to set up a municipal care provider for the elderly in order to offer care places themselves. In order for such a carrier to be able to act as a provider with equal rights, Die Linke calls for the abolition of the principle of subsidiarity at federal level. This characterizes the social legislation and protects private providers: If they work properly and professionally, they could get approval for a service and claim financial help from the state. According to this, however, the state may only provide its own offers if free welfare or commercial providers are unable to fulfill the tasks.