AfD on health and care

The AfD rejects restrictions on fundamental rights, school closures, and a general vaccine mandate in Covid policy. Instead it calls for a protection strategy that differentiates by risk.

The AfD is against a vaccine mandate for everyone. It also does not want schools closed because of Covid. Basic rights should not be limited. Protection should depend on how high a person's risk is.

The platform speaks of "Covid realism instead of Covid hysteria." In the foreword, the party says there would have been no school closures in NRW under its government. It calls lockdowns demonstrably ineffective and harmful to the economy. Protection against the virus should be geared to each group's level of risk.

The AfD rejects COVID vaccination of children and adolescents and wants lockdowns allowed only under narrow conditions. Educators at daycare centers and elementary schools should get extra training to recognize the psychological effects of the measures on children.

The AfD is against COVID shots for children and teenagers. Lockdowns should only happen when there is great danger. The AfD says the COVID rules harmed many children. Teachers and daycare staff should learn how to deal with that.

According to the platform, children fall ill with COVID-19 less often and less severely but were hit especially hard by government measures; it lists depression, sleep disorders, and developmental delays. The AfD calls for an additional training module for staff at kindergartens and elementary schools on this harm and its treatment. It considers lockdowns permissible only in cases of massive danger, after a medical decision, and after weighing the consequential harm. It describes the fundamental rights of families as inviolable.

The AfD wants to expand preventive health services and have nutrition and exercise discussed as early as elementary school. Everyone should have good medical care nearby, regardless of income and also in rural areas.

The AfD wants more preventive health services. Prevention means staying healthy before you get sick. Children should learn about food and exercise in elementary school. Everyone should have a doctor nearby, also in the countryside.

The party wants to build on the existing health care system while reassessing its efficiency. According to the platform, basic knowledge of disease prevention can enter the curriculum from third grade. The AfD names personal responsibility, counseling, and a jointly agreed choice of therapy as guiding principles. The influence of lobbyists is to shrink and unnecessary treatments are to become rarer. The system is to be prepared for demographic change.

The AfD wants to fund hospitals through individual budgets rather than relying solely on per-case flat rates. Hospitals should no longer close for economic reasons, and private operators should make up no more than 60 percent of the hospital sector.

The AfD wants to pay hospitals in a different way. Each hospital should get its own budget. No hospital should close because of money. Private companies should run at most 60 percent of hospitals.

The platform criticizes the DRG flat-rate system as a cost-cutting mechanism that speeds up hospital closures, especially in rural areas. Individual budgets are meant to keep emergency care, maternity wards and inpatient care for children available close to home, even in weaker regions. The share of private operators would be capped at 60 percent so that money from insured people does not flow to investors as profit. Health agreements with other countries that the AfD considers disadvantageous, such as the one with Turkey, are to be renegotiated.

The AfD wants to improve care for older people with a package of measures, including more short-term care places, new forms of housing and stronger palliative care. No one should face money worries or a long search for a care place in old age.

The AfD wants to do more for old people. There should be more places for short-term care. Old people should be able to live on their own for a long time. Workers in elder care should get better pay.

The platform sees the aging of society as a growing challenge and accuses politicians of having long ignored structural shortcomings. It calls for more short-term care places, research-based development of home care, and better information about relief services for family caregivers. It also calls for new forms of housing for seniors, better working conditions and pay in elder care, and more palliative care.

The AfD wants to strengthen nursing staff through collectively agreed wages across the board, fixed minimum staffing levels and better career prospects. It rejects compulsory membership in the Pflegekammer (nursing chamber), which it sees as nothing but extra bureaucracy.

The AfD wants better conditions for nurses. They should get union-level pay everywhere. There should be fixed rules for enough staff. Nobody should be forced to join the nursing chamber.

According to the platform, recognition for nursing should come through tangible improvements rather than image campaigns. It names collectively agreed wages statewide, binding minimum staffing levels and opportunities for further qualification. In the AfD's view, the nursing chamber with compulsory membership offers staff no visible benefit. Professions such as physical therapists, speech therapists, midwives and alternative practitioners should also receive more appreciation, and red tape in health care should be cut so staff have more time for patients.

The AfD wants to strengthen domestic production of medicines and medical devices to reduce dependence on global supply chains. It also wants the state to fund antibiotic research.

The AfD wants more medicines to be made in Germany. That way the country depends less on supplies from abroad. The state should pay for research on antibiotics. Antibiotics are drugs that fight bacteria.

The platform points to supply shortages that it says were visible before the COVID-19 crisis, as well as hospital germs, resistance and diseases that pass from animals to humans. Support should focus on the production of key emergency medicines. The AfD calls for public funding of antibiotic research, a binding list of reserve antibiotics set aside for humans and not for livestock breeding, and support for domestic medical research. Incentives should also advance digital and robot-assisted solutions for hygiene and cleaning in hospitals.

The AfD rejects any form of mandatory vaccination and wants a state parliament committee of inquiry to review COVID-19 policy. Health policy powers are to be brought back from the EU.

The AfD does not want mandatory vaccination. Nobody should be forced to get a vaccine. The state parliament should look closely at COVID-19 policy. The EU should decide less on health policy.

The platform accuses decision-makers of imposing blanket closures instead of developing risk-based protection strategies and sees this as a serious intrusion on civil liberties. Besides saying no to direct and indirect vaccine mandates, the AfD calls for permanently funded emergency capacity and medical societies free from outside instructions. No further health policy powers should go to the EU, and those already transferred should be taken back. The public health service is to be strengthened, and the AfD plans to request a committee of inquiry in the next legislative term.