Hospital.Help

Berlin – With a joint appeal, all professional groups in the health sector want to draw attention to the problems in current and future health care. The 40 associations of the Health Alliance called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) today to attend a health summit in the Chancellery. The list of demands, which was presented in Berlin today, is now to be sent to the Chancellery.

The associations, which include the German Medical Association, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, the German Nursing Council, the Association of Medical Professions, the pharmacists, the Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists, the Federal Chamber of Dentists and many of the medical professional associations, represent around four million employees.

The paper calls for a fundamental reorientation of the health care system and its political control. The key issues are combating the shortage of skilled workers, sustainable financing of the health care system and reforming the care structures. In order to usher in a fundamental change in policy, however, the individual professional groups would have to be included in political discussions on legislation much earlier.

“The laws and the desired changes are not being accepted by us in the health professions,” said Ute Repschläger, chairwoman of the Federal Association of Self-Employed Physiotherapists. Therefore, the self-administration of the professions must be strengthened, says the position paper of the Health Alliance.

Overall, however, a change in policy goes beyond the areas of responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Health: “Many aspects of education policy, transport policy and environmental policy also influence health in society. Occupational safety is also an important factor in economic policy,” emphasised the President of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt. The alliance is therefore now calling for a summit in the Chancellery, “because everything is connected when it comes to health.”

Reinhardt stressed that this should not be understood as criticism of the cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). “The point here is that the horizon represented by the BMG is a broader one. And that makes this summit of a different quality than summits for other sectors.”

Reinhardt stressed that they were calling for a social discussion to begin on the prospects of a society with long lives. In just a few years, we will be in a situation where there will be 100 employees and 50 pensioners.

However, from the alliance’s point of view, the changes are already clearly visible: “We are already feeling the changes in society, but also in everyday care, perhaps faster than other professional groups,” emphasised Reinhardt and the President of the German Nursing Council, Christine Vogler.

“Even in routine operations, the gap between expectations and reality of health care is widening,” warned Vogler. In her view, the system would not be able to cope with the next health crisis, similar to a pandemic. BÄK President Reinhardt stressed that “people’s trust in our basic democratic order is also significantly influenced by trust in a reliable health care system.”

In particular, healthcare workers must be better protected from overwork in the future, even in the current situation. “Working conditions must not continue to lead to skilled workers changing careers and deliberately leaving the healthcare sector,” explained Repschläger.

She also advocated good integration of foreign skilled workers and targeted support for young talent at home. In order to maintain health care at the current level, the health literacy of the population must be significantly improved, the paper also states.

In order to maintain health care, “adequate financing of the health system is essential,” explained Hannelore König, President of the Association of Medical Professions. “Health and care are not cost factors; they form the basis for a livable, socially and politically stable society.”

König also demanded that statutory health and nursing care insurance be secured with sufficient federal funds. In particular, the many non-insurance benefits in statutory health insurance must be better secured through tax financing. These include, for example, contribution-free family co-insurance, family-related benefits in kind, sick pay, exemptions from co-payments and preventive services.

From the perspective of the alliance’s members, “it is no longer appropriate to budget for services in view of the looming shortage of care.” Therefore, the aim must be to abolish the budgets. Many professional groups have some hope that digitalization will bring about improvements in the system soon.

“If we could communicate better with each other in the future via the ePA or messenger services, an incredible amount of resources could be saved,” says Vogler. The demands paper states that “digitalization must be implemented as a priority, in a way that is appropriate to the needs of the patient and user-friendly.” All professions need equal access to digital applications.

The alliance has been working on the thesis paper for a long time and has also discussed it intensively, as BÄK President Reinhardt reported. “In this first process, we deliberately discussed it only among ourselves in the health professions and without the health insurance companies,” explained König from the Association of Medical Professions.

The Health Alliance was founded in 1999 in protest against the Federal Ministry of Health’s plans to introduce a global budget. It has repeatedly contributed to the debate in recent years. © bee/aerzteblatt.de