CDU on health and care

The CDU wants to secure basic medical care in rural areas: family doctors, pediatricians, gynecologists, dentists and pharmacies should be no more than 20 minutes away. To that end, one fifth of university places would go to future rural doctors and pharmacists, and new practices would get more support.

Everyone should reach a doctor or pharmacy within 20 minutes. This should also be true in rural areas. The CDU wants to reserve university places for people who will later work in the countryside. Suitability should matter more than school grades. People who open a practice should get more help.

Thuringia would award 20 percent of university places in medicine, dentistry and pharmacy to applicants who commit to working in underserved regions of the state; suitability, not grade average, would be decisive. The foundation for outpatient medical care is to receive more money and be able to support new practices in rural districts of larger municipalities as well. The CDU wants to push for appropriate payment for services provided in practices, since in its view the budget caps discourage extra work. The family doctor is to remain the first point of contact.

The CDU wants to establish rural nurses (Landschwestern) in villages to provide basic medical care for less mobile people, supplemented by community care workers. Public transit would also be expanded with flexible rides to doctors and hospitals.

Rural areas should get rural nurses. These are medical assistants with extra training. They make home visits and check in digitally with the family doctor. Community care workers would join them. Buses should get people to the doctor more easily.

According to the platform, the rural nurse is a medical assistant with further training who makes home visits independently and coordinates digitally with the family doctor. Thuringia is to become a model region under the Social Code in order to combine medical care and community nursing. For trips to practices and clinics, the CDU relies on flexible services such as citizen-run buses. Office hours and travel routes are to be factored more strongly into public transit planning.

The CDU wants to tackle hospital planning immediately and give every site a future as a place of medical care. A transformation fund and higher state investment funding are to pay for restructuring the clinics.

No hospital site in Thuringia should disappear. Every site should keep providing medical care. The CDU wants to give clinics more money for rebuilding and equipment. Difficult planned operations should take place in large, specialized hospitals.

Basic care with emergency medicine, internal medicine, surgery and maternity services is to exist throughout the state; to achieve this the CDU wants to test cross-sector models and establish the "Polyclinic 2.0" as a hub for specialist and day-patient treatment. Plannable procedures are to be concentrated in quality centers, mainly at large providers and Jena University Hospital, combined with incentives for clinics to cooperate. A hospital transformation fund is to cover all investments needed for the restructuring. The investment backlog would be reduced step by step; the platform accuses the previous state government of having fallen short of its payment obligations. A permanent expert panel would prepare planning with the hospital association, the medical chamber and the health insurers.

The CDU wants to develop a master plan for ground ambulance services, air rescue and intensive care transfers, and provide more money and staff. New vehicle types, additional helicopter bases and more first responders are meant to close gaps in emergency care.

The CDU wants to improve emergency medical services. There should be more money and more staff. Rescue helicopters should be able to fly at night too. Not every call should have to end at a hospital. Every town should have defibrillators. These are devices that help when a heart stops.

The emergency services act is to permit emergency patient transport vehicles, and bureaucratic rules should not get in the way of operations. Because, according to the platform, the service is also overloaded by improper call-outs, a statewide telemedicine pilot project would allow ambulance runs to end somewhere other than a hospital. For air rescue, additional helicopter bases are planned along with flights in darkness and bad weather. Community paramedics are to be tested and deployed in areas with long travel distances. Publicly accessible defibrillators are to be available in all municipalities.

The CDU wants to create more training and university places in the health professions to keep young people in Thuringia. Training in allied health professions is to remain free of tuition fees, and documentation duties are to be cut so that more time is left for patients.

The CDU wants more places for training and study in health jobs. Young people should stay in Thuringia. Training should still cost no school fees. Doctors and nurses should have less paperwork.

The program commits to new buildings and investment to offer more places, for example in dentistry and pharmacy. Until then, study places are to be bought at other universities on short notice. Regional hospitals of levels 2 and 3 are to take a larger part in training medical students, including entire stages of training on site. The abolished school fees for physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, dietitians and podiatrists are to stay abolished. The CDU wants to remove duplicate statistical, reporting and documentation requirements.

The CDU wants to make nursing care work more attractive through more authority for skilled staff, fewer documentation duties and better working conditions. Caregivers who left the profession are to be won back, overtime in care is to be tax-free, and a voluntary "Thuringia Year" is to introduce young people to social professions.

The CDU wants to make care jobs more attractive. Skilled care workers should decide more on their own. They should have less paperwork. They should pay no tax on overtime. Young people should be able to do a voluntary year in Thuringia.

Statistical, reporting and documentation duties in care are to be reduced. The tasks of assistants, skilled staff and academically trained personnel are to be separated more clearly. Together with unions and employers, the CDU wants to push for binding shift schedules, fewer split shifts, flexible part-time work and suitable childcare. A win-back initiative targets former care workers, and retraining programs of the Federal Employment Agency are to be used more. The CDU favors a year of service for entire age groups, pointing to experience with the former civilian service; in the state it wants to start with a voluntary Thuringia Year.

The CDU wants to recruit care workers from abroad for Thuringia in a targeted way. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized more simply and much faster, because the party sees no other way to meet the demand for staff in care.

The CDU wants to bring care workers from other countries. Their qualifications should be accepted faster. This should also become easier. The CDU says Thuringia needs these workers for care.

The program calls this a turbo for recruitment and recognition. It justifies the plan by saying that care depends on skilled workers from abroad. It provides for targeted recruitment abroad and a simpler, much faster procedure for recognizing professional qualifications.

The CDU wants to plan and fund care infrastructure in a coordinated way through a state care plan. Gaps in provision are to be identified and care staff steered to underserved regions; tele-care and digital aids are to receive state money.

The CDU wants to plan care better across the state. The state should see where care workers are missing. More care workers should go there. The state should also fund care by phone and internet.

According to the program, the previous state government did too little to meet its responsibility for planning and funding care infrastructure. The state care plan is to reveal gaps and bring staff to poorly served areas, for example through incentives. Tele-care, as the program describes it, covers services such as monitoring, advice and data transmission that tie up fewer staff. Technical and digital systems that let people needing care stay in their own homes longer are also to be supported with state funds.

The CDU wants to make care cheaper for those affected and to press for a care reform at the federal level. The state is to co-finance investments by care facilities, and owner-occupied homes and retirement savings are no longer to be drawn on for care costs.

The CDU wants care to cost less. The state should give care homes money for investments. Then residents pay less. Nobody should have to sell their own home to pay for care. The CDU also wants a federal care reform.

The CDU commits to the social long-term care insurance and considers the proposals of the federal coalition government insufficient. A reform should first secure existing benefits and keep them affordable. State funds for the facilities' necessary investments are to cut costs for those affected by up to 17 percent, according to the program. The party justifies protecting home ownership and retirement savings by saying many people have to give up their provisions to pay for a spouse's care.

The CDU wants to introduce a state care allowance (Landespflegegeld) for people needing care from care grade II. The money is meant to let them treat themselves or give financial recognition to the people who care for them.

The CDU wants a state care allowance. This is money from the state for people who need care. People get it from care grade 2. They can use the money for themselves. Or they can give it to their helpers.

The benefit is aimed at people needing care from the second care grade upward. They are to decide freely whether to use the money themselves or pass it on. As possible recipients, the program names family caregivers, friends and helpers.

The CDU wants to ease the burden on people who care for relatives. Time spent caring is to count more toward working life, care insurance contributions and pensions; working hours are to become more flexible, and advice and short-term care services are to be expanded.

The CDU wants to help people who care for relatives. Time spent caring should count more for the pension. People who cared should later pay less for care insurance. A website should show free places in care homes. There should be more short-term care.

Time spent caring is to be credited toward a person's working life; contributions to care insurance are to fall or be waived in later employment, depending on how long the care lasted. Family time accounts are to allow flexible working hours. A central website is to pool all information, and a "Heimfinder" tool is to show free places in real time, including for short-term, respite, day and night care. Health kiosks and care support centers are to be merged into joint case management. The CDU wants to expand short-term, respite, day and night care.