Grüne on health and care

The Greens want new medical developments to reach patients more quickly. To that end, university hospitals, universities, research institutions and companies are to work together more closely.

The Greens want new medicine to reach sick people faster. Hospitals, researchers and companies should work together more closely. Heidelberg and Mannheim should become a top place for medical research.

The association Universitätsmedizin Baden-Württemberg (4U network) and the Forum Gesundheitsstandort BW are to be expanded. Research on aging is also to be advanced. The alliance of the Heidelberg and Mannheim university hospitals, together with the “Health and Life Science Alliance” innovation campus, is to become Germany's number one and an internationally visible site for medical research.

The Greens rely on a strong public health system. They call on the federal government to fund hospital treatment reliably, and the state is to keep raising its investment funding for hospitals.

The Greens want good hospitals for everyone. The federal government should pay for treatment reliably. The state should give more money for buildings and equipment.

According to the program, the guiding principle of health policy is: digital and preventive before outpatient, outpatient before inpatient. Health is to be considered in all policy areas. The party says the state's investment funding for hospitals has been raised step by step in recent years, and this course is to continue.

The Greens want training in health professions to be free of school fees. According to the program, the fees deter many young people from careers such as speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy, even though there is demand.

Some training courses in health care cost money. Physical therapy is one example. The Greens want to end these fees. Then more young people will take up this training.

The program names speech therapists, occupational therapists and physical therapists as examples. It says interest and demand exist, but the fees put people off. Fee-free schooling is therefore to apply to the health professions.

The Greens want to push ahead with digitalization in health care and promote telemedicine. Family doctors' offices should be reachable and able to advise digitally, which is meant above all to strengthen care in rural areas.

The Greens want more digital services at the doctor's. Patients should also be able to talk to doctors by video. This helps people in the countryside most. But technology should not replace people.

According to the program, the state's cloud platform „MEDI:CUS“ enables secure exchange of health and care data, second opinions and sharing of findings. Telemedicine is meant to allow communication between doctors and patients regardless of location and across specialties. Digital advice from the family doctor's office is meant to avoid unnecessary use of highly specialized medicine. The party sees technology as a means to better care, not a substitute for human contact.

The Greens want to strengthen professional nursing care through modernized training, new job profiles, more say for nurses and better working conditions. Family caregivers are to be relieved by more day-care and short-term care places. A „Pakt der Pflege“ (care pact) is meant to secure local care.

The Greens want to strengthen nursing care. Training should become more modern. Nurses should have more say. Many people care for relatives at home. They should get more help, for example through day care.

A permanent strategic dialogue on care would bring together professionals, researchers, associations and politicians. Plans include new roles such as the community health nurse, more nursing research and stronger geriatric training. The state nursing council would be built into a professional representative body with institutional funding. Nursing assistant training is supplemented with intensive German classes for migrants, and a state agency helps nurses immigrate. The „Innovationsprogramm Pflege“ funds concepts for short-term, day, night and outpatient care.

The Greens want to launch an initiative called „Hausärztliche Versorgung“ to close gaps in basic medical care. It includes a new quota for rural pediatricians, a municipal doctors' fund and better conditions in the practical year of medical school.

Rural areas often lack doctors. The Greens want to change that. There should be study places for future rural children's doctors. A fund should support new practices in the countryside. Medical students should get enough pay in their practical year.

Plans include additional teaching practices in the countryside, scholarships for a practical year in rural regions, and scholarships and programs for doctors switching from other fields into family medicine. The practical year is to come with a minimum stipend that covers living costs, good teaching and recognition of sick days. The municipal doctors' fund would support new practices in underserved regions. Primary care centers with multi-professional teams are to become part of standard care, and municipal and cooperative medical centers get support.

The Greens want to expand research on sex- and gender-specific differences in medicine because, in their account, drugs and therapies are tested mainly on men. Trans and intersex people should be treated without discrimination. Midwifery care is to be secured across the state.

Many medicines are tested mostly on men. The Greens want more research on women's health. Doctors should learn to treat trans and intersex people fairly. There should be enough midwives everywhere.

According to the program, research neglects the health of women and of non-binary, intersex and trans people. Doctors, especially gynecologists and family doctors, are to receive awareness training and continuing education. At the federal level, the Greens want to push for a better midwifery services contract in statutory health insurance. The party also supports free menstrual products in public buildings.

The Greens want a health system that prevents illness rather than only reacting to it. To that end, a statewide prevention strategy is to be developed, school health professionals tested at more schools and the public health service developed further.

The Greens want people not to get sick in the first place. There should be a plan for the whole state. More schools should have health staff. The public health offices should also do more for prevention.

School health professionals are meant to strengthen students' health, even out opportunities and teach health knowledge early. The public health service is to actively drive health planning, prevention and health promotion, including through a networking and expertise unit and a cross-ministry health strategy. Municipal health conferences and prevention networks would be strengthened. People with post-acute infection syndromes would continue to be supported through pilot projects such as „MOVE-ME/CFS BW“ and „SEVERE-PAIS“.

The Greens put prevention at the center of their drug and addiction policy. They want services where users can have the contents of drugs tested, and they want to expand health care for people who are addicted or at risk.

The Greens want to prevent addiction. People should be able to have drugs tested. Then they know what is in them. This should protect them from dangerous substances. People with an addiction should get good help.

Harm-reduction services are meant to lower health risks caused, for example, by adulterated substances, contaminated syringes or dangerous additives. Drug checking is part of a comprehensive prevention concept. People who are addicted or at risk of addiction should have access to well-developed care.

The Greens want to secure the supply of basic medicines by promoting regional production of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Local pharmacies are to be strengthened so that supply stays close to where people live.

Sometimes important medicines are missing, such as fever syrup for children. The Greens want more medicines to be made in the region. Local pharmacies should also be strengthened.

The program gives the example of children's fever syrup, which can run short because of supply problems on the world market. The support is to go to regional and sustainable production. The party sees the local pharmacy as the guarantor of supply close to home.

The Greens want to close gaps in care for people with mental illness, especially in rural areas. Prevention should start early, with more school psychologists and more therapy places for children and young people. A strategy against loneliness is also to be developed.

Many people have mental illnesses. They often struggle to find help. The Greens want more therapy places, especially in the countryside. Schools should have more psychologists. Lonely people should get places to turn to.

Telemedicine is meant to supplement care, and public education is meant to reduce prejudice against those affected. Psychosocial counseling, first points of contact and addiction and suicide prevention would be strengthened, along with community-based emergency and crisis care. At the federal level, the Greens want the funding of psychotherapists' advanced training to be secured by law. Central contact points would offer help to lonely people.

The Greens want to renovate and build rescue stations, improve staffing and technology at dispatch centers and deploy community paramedics. The shorter response-time target is not to come at the expense of employees.

The Greens want to repair and build rescue stations. Dispatch centers take emergency calls. They should get more experts and shared software. Community paramedics should help with less serious cases. That gives rescue teams more time for real emergencies.

The backlog in renovating and building rescue stations, including for mountain, water and air rescue, is to shrink further in the next term. New ways of recruiting specialists are planned for the integrated dispatch centers, along with uniform statewide software with digital interfaces to the police on a European open-source basis. Self-administration in the rescue service is to be judged by its results and reviewed if necessary. For the shortened response time, the platform demands sufficient staff and equipment.

The Greens want to lay the groundwork for joint emergency care with Alsace and northwestern Switzerland. In health care more broadly, bureaucratic hurdles for staff and patients at the border are to be removed.

In an emergency, the border should not matter. Rescue services from three countries should train and help together. Doctors and nurses should find it easier to work in the neighboring country. Patients should be treated where it is fastest.

Ambulance, air rescue, water rescue and mountain rescue services are to practice working together regularly. Legal rules for emergency services are to be aligned and joint training expanded. Together with France and Switzerland, hurdles for medical staff and patients are to be reduced. Funding for the trinational health center TRISAN is to be secured for the long term. Municipalities are to give their cooperation an explicitly European focus, for example on the environment, climate and energy.