;Resize=(1200,627)&impolicy=perceptual&quality=mediumHigh&hash=81230988df2e1bfe2e8e454463fc64355a4a46fc446e4fe2be28608afa2ab7a7 "State of emergency in the Hamburg hospital: scabies, fractures and open legs")
It’s Wednesday, 12:30 p.m., and a line has already formed outside the door of the doctor’s office in a basement in Altona. All misery meets in the small room: people with broken bones or scabies up to large, inflamed wounds. The patients only come here when it’s really bad: they live on the streets and have no health insurance. The helpers do their best and yet have the feeling that they are fighting against windmills.
The first person Ronald Kelm, nurse, and Niklas Berger, specialist in general medicine, call into the small room with all the medicines that day is Radislav. He lies down on the bunk and pulls up his pants. Underneath is a shinbone covered with wounds. “It’s looking a lot better than last week. It’s good that you come here so regularly.” Berger spreads some ointment on his leg, Radislav doesn’t want a plaster.
Hamburg: More and more people without health insurance
He lives on the street. The basement room at Billrothstraße 79 in Altona-Altstadt, where Berger and Kelm practice, belongs to the day care center for the homeless “Mahlzeit Altona”, which makes it available once a week. The consultation hours are organized by the health mobile in which the two work. Radislav is grateful that he gets help here. “I’ve lived in Germany for 20 years,” says the native Pole. “I worked on construction sites until I lost my job and with it my apartment. Actually, I shouldn’t be here.”
The doctors have equipped their practice with the essentials. Pauline Ree
Kelm and Berger launched the consultation hour in autumn 2022 with the start of the winter emergency program for the homeless. “The city’s offers are obviously not enough. There are more and more people without health insurance and people are getting sicker and sicker. Scabies was rampant here in winter,” says Kelm.
You might also be interested in: An ambulance every day, huge costs: The absurd treatment of the homeless
A few days ago, the social authority said at MOPO request: “Low-threshold medical offers for homeless people have already been expanded in recent years.” Not enough, think Niklas Berger and Ronald Kelm. “With what we’ve seen here, we wonder if we’re in Europe,” complains Ronald Kelm. The most common ailments are high blood pressure, diabetes, hepatitis, drug addiction and lung infections. They have to be examined regularly: something that the doctors can do much better here than in the health mobile.
Homeless people are often turned away in hospitals
David, her next patient, has his interpreter in tow. Berger and Kelm rattle off their questionnaire: “Do you speak German? Polish? Age? Surname? do you sleep on the street In the tent?” David was hit by a bicycle, his foot may be broken. The doctors refer him to an x-ray.
Ronald Kelm (left) and Niklas Berger initiated the consultation hours in the basement of the “Mahlzeit Altona”. Pauline Ree
“There are a few clinics that we work with,” says Ronald Kelm. “Unfortunately, people without health insurance are often only treated in extreme emergencies. If we issue David a referral slip, his chances are better.” In their basement, the doctors can take blood, measure sugar, perform an ECG and a sonography. But somewhere they reach their limits.
You might also be interested in: Is politics pushing homeless people and their helpers out of the city centre?
If David’s leg is really broken, he needs a splint. He seems grateful, takes some painkillers and vitamins with him, and a body lotion: all financed by donations. “We’re doing our best here,” says Ronald Kelm. “But we can’t do it alone. We are dependent on the city.” After an hour, most of the medicines have been distributed. Patients are instructed to come back in a week. Then it starts all over again.