Grüne on health and care

The Greens want to build a regional health center with interdisciplinary teams in every mid-sized town. Mobile practices, telemedicine, health kiosks and community nurses are meant to strengthen underserved areas. The aim is for care not to depend on where a person lives.

The Greens want health centers in every mid-sized town. Doctors, nurses and therapists work together there. Rural areas should get mobile practices and video appointments. Community nurses should help people where they live.

Regional health conferences are to develop local medical care further. In the health centers, general practitioners and specialists, nurses and therapists would work together. Mobile practices, telemedicine, health kiosks and the mobility of medical staff are also to be funded. "Community Health Nurses," which the platform also calls Gemeindeschwestern (community nurses), are to be established statewide and provide support close to home. The party wants to plan outpatient and inpatient care together.

The Greens want to push ahead with hospital reform and open rural hospitals to outpatient treatment. The state is to adequately fund hospital investment. This is meant to secure care across the whole state.

The Greens want to change the hospitals in the state. Rural hospitals should also treat patients who do not stay overnight. Hospitals should get enough money for buildings and equipment. That way there is help everywhere.

The plan calls for cross-sector care in which doctors' practices and hospitals work together more closely. In rural areas, hospitals would be allowed to offer outpatient services according to need. Adequate funding of hospital investment is to be added. The party ties this to the goal of statewide coverage for the population.

The Greens want to improve working conditions in health and nursing professions and strengthen training. More people should enter and stay in these jobs, and skilled workers from abroad should be integrated faster. The platform sees the cause of the staff shortage in the underlying conditions.

There are not enough skilled workers in nursing and medicine. The Greens want to make these jobs better. There should be enough staff and shifts people can plan for. Training should also be possible part-time. Skilled workers from other countries should be able to start work faster.

The plan includes reliable staffing ratios, predictable shifts and protection of staff from violence and harassment. A central coordination office for nursing training is to link nursing schools, training providers and practical instructors. More training content is to be taught digitally; part-time and in-service routes and progression from assistant level to a university degree are to be made easier. To address the shortage, the platform lists better training and study conditions, fair pay, multiprofessional teams and digital support. International skilled workers are to be integrated faster, since recognition procedures take too long according to the platform.

The Greens want to attract more skilled workers to health care. They plan more places to study medicine, uniform pay for the practical year of medical training, and faster recognition of foreign qualifications.

The Greens want more trained people in medicine and care. There should be more places to study medicine. Medical students should get paid in their practical year. Degrees from other countries should count faster.

The program calls for more medical school places at the state's two universities. The practical year of medical studies would be paid at the same rate everywhere, based on the current maximum BAföG (student aid) rate. Procedures for recognizing foreign professional qualifications would become faster and better. The Greens also want to promote digital tools in care, such as telemedicine, digital documentation and assistance systems for home care.

The Greens want to expand psychiatric and psychotherapy services so people get help sooner. They also plan statewide crisis services, more prevention and addiction support, and mental health education in schools.

Many people wait a long time for therapy. The Greens want to create more services. This should make waiting times shorter. Crisis services should offer quick help everywhere. Schools should also look after mental health.

The expansion is to follow actual need and serve all age groups, especially children, teenagers and young adults, including in rural areas. Outpatient and inpatient care, counseling and integration assistance would work together more closely at the regional level. For people with severe mental illness, the program plans more housing and support options, and no one should be discharged from a clinic into homelessness. Addiction counseling would be secured and supplemented with easy-access help including drug checking, meaning testing drugs for dangerous substances. Diagnosis, counseling and treatment for neurodivergent people would get more capacity, and schools would get enough social workers.

The Greens want a dense statewide network of advice centers close to where people live, so that access to the health system becomes easier. The plan includes health navigators and independent patient representatives in every district.

Many people cannot find the right place in the health system. The Greens want more advice centers close to home. Health guides should show people the way. Every district should get an independent contact person for patients.

Self-help groups and patient organizations would receive support across the state. Health navigators would be trained for disadvantaged urban neighborhoods and rural communities to guide people through the health system. The patient representatives would be attached to the local public health offices. Advice on addiction, sexual health and gender-specific health services would also be expanded.

The Greens want to make long-term care more reliable with more skilled staff, better training and less bureaucracy. The care support centers are to become a network with mobile teams that also reaches rural areas. The rule requiring burial in a cemetery would also be lifted.

The Greens want to improve care for old and sick people. There should be more trained staff and less paperwork. Mobile teams should visit and advise people in rural areas. The Greens also want to end the cemetery rule. Then urns would no longer have to go to a cemetery.

The 19 existing care support centers would handle preventive home visits, advice and coordination of care services. In long-term care, duplicate inspections would be dropped, information pooled and quality checks run by clear standards. Care training at schools and universities would be developed further, with more university capacity and more practical work. Services in underserved regions would be supported and linked with neighborhood help, shared care apartments, serviced housing and day care. The program also calls for more accessibility in health and care facilities and a reformed burial law without the cemetery requirement.

The Greens want to secure maternity care close to home and improve access to abortion. They also want medicine to focus more on women. The platform justifies this by pointing to what it calls structural unequal treatment of women in health care.

The Greens want birth care close to where people live. Midwives should get more support. Women should get an abortion appointment faster. Medicine should pay more attention to women.

The plan includes midwife-led delivery rooms, more birth centers and mobile midwife services. A state concept is meant to create a quality-assured care network around birth that covers the whole state and works across sectors. For endometriosis, the Greens plan a statewide strategy on care, education and participation. Specialized centers for women-specific illnesses are to be set up at the university hospitals, and gender medicine is to be firmly established at the state's universities.