Linke on health and care

The Left wants the public sector to invest heavily in health and medical care. This includes hospital planning by the state. In the party's view, hospitals should serve people rather than corporate profits.

The Left wants to spend a lot of money on health. The money should come from the state. The state should plan well where hospitals are. Hospitals should be there for people, not for profit.

The demand is part of the party's response to what it describes as a crisis in basic public services. The platform counts health and care among the areas where no profit should be made. The Left points out that the state government has already invested in hospitals.

The Left wants statutory health insurers to cover the full cost of contraceptives so that contraception does not depend on income. A menstrual leave law is to be added. Research and care are to pay more attention to differences between the sexes.

The Left wants health insurance to pay fully for contraceptives. Contraception should not fail because of money. There should be a law on time off during menstruation. Medicine should treat women and men equally well.

Coverage is to include both hormonal and hormone-free methods. The program describes the menstrual leave law as state support within gender-sensitive health care. The party justifies its demands by saying that women are often treated according to medicine oriented toward men, while men go to the doctor less often. Diseases specific to women that have been little studied so far are to receive more research.

The Left wants to secure medical care close to home across Thuringia, including in places where practices struggle to find successors. It relies on the rural doctor quota, additional scholarships, start-up grants for practices, and easier access to medical and dental degree programs.

The Left wants enough doctors in every part of Thuringia. Rural areas in particular lack doctors. Students should get money if they plan to work in the countryside later. People who open a practice should get money too.

Some medical school places remain reserved for people who commit to working in rural Thuringia later. New scholarships are meant to reach students of medicine or dentistry who study outside Thuringia as well. Admission restrictions are to be loosened, and entry to the degree is to be made easier for people with prior medical training. The foundation that promotes outpatient medical care is to be expanded, and the practical year in rural practices gets targeted funding. Since 2023 the start-up grant has been up to 40,000 euros. The party also wants to advance telemedicine, geriatric care networks, and prevention.

The Left wants to preserve pharmacies close to where people live, especially in rural areas. It backs pharmacies run by their owners and opposes mail-order and chain pharmacies, arguing that only this model ensures good advice and short distances.

The Left wants to keep pharmacies nearby. This matters most in the countryside. The pharmacist should own the pharmacy. The party is against mail-order pharmacies and pharmacy chains.

The platform names the start-up grant as the main tool; it also applies to founding or taking over a pharmacy. The University of Jena is to offer more places to study pharmacy. The party also wants to take action against pharmacy closures.

The Left wants to substantially strengthen the public health service, citing the experience of the pandemic. Municipalities are to get support in setting up their own medical care centers as a public counterweight to private providers.

The Left wants stronger public health offices. They were very important in the pandemic. Towns should be able to set up their own medical centers. The party wants a public option next to private companies.

As part of strengthening the health offices, an annual state health conference is to be anchored in law. The four existing health kiosks are to keep receiving support as advice centers, and more locations are to be added. Especially in rural areas, the party wants to make community nurses possible.

The Left wants to strengthen local maternity care, especially in rural areas, and commits to free choice of where to give birth. Its stated goal is for every woman in labor to be cared for by one midwife of her own.

The Left wants better help for births. This matters most in the countryside. Pregnant women should choose where to have their baby. Every woman should have her own midwife during birth.

Advice and information services on midwife care, along with family support measures, are to get permanent state funding. The Round Table on Family and Birth is to work out strategies for Thuringia, including for implementing the national health goal on birth. The midwifery degree at Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena is to be expanded, while the three-year vocational training remains available.

The Left wants to keep every hospital site in Thuringia and considers clinic closures unacceptable. It calls on the federal government for adequate funding without per-case flat rates and wants to bring hospitals more into public ownership.

The Left wants to keep all hospitals in Thuringia. No clinic should close. The federal government should pay hospitals differently and better. More hospitals should belong to the state or to towns.

Per-case flat rates are fixed sums per treatment; the party wants to replace them with stable hospital funding. Sites are to be adapted to changing needs, with basic care staying close to home and plannable procedures done where experience is greatest. The state intends to keep funding investment: about 400 million euros were approved in 2023, and the 2024 budget provides another 91 million. After Mühlhausen, the forensic psychiatric facilities in Hildburghausen and Stadtroda are also to return to state control. Work on the 8th hospital plan is under way with broad participation.

The Left wants to push in the Bundesrat for a statutory health and long-term care insurance that all working groups must pay into. The party sees this citizens' insurance as necessary to fund long-term care better.

The Left wants one insurance for everyone. Everyone should pay into the same health and care insurance. This includes civil servants, self-employed people, and lawmakers. That should bring more money for care.

Besides employees, lawmakers, the self-employed, freelancers, and civil servants would also have to be insured. Because this is federal law, the party wants to work toward it through the Bundesrat. There it also wants to press more generally for more money for long-term care.

The Left wants to introduce a Thuringian state care allowance to ease the burden on people who need care and their relatives. Care costs are also to be limited, and family caregivers are to get better advice.

The Left wants a new care allowance from the state. People with care level 2 or higher get up to 600 euros a year. Care should not become too expensive. Relatives who give care should get more advice.

The benefit would give people with at least care level 2 a maximum of 600 euros a year. The party is also considering subsidies for the investment costs of care facilities and is looking for other ways to finance the share nursing home residents pay today. The five existing care support centers are to be built up further as accessible municipal advice offices. Combining care and work is to become easier, also so that men take a larger part in home care. The party wants to support hospice and palliative work, much of it done by volunteers.

The Left supports binding staffing requirements in long-term care and in hospitals, backed by sector-wide collective agreements. Care workers are to get higher pay and better working conditions so that more people work in these jobs.

The Left wants fixed rules for the number of care workers. The rules should apply to all care homes and hospitals. Care workers should earn more money. That way more people should work in care.

The staffing ratios are to apply to all operators and facilities and be based on the needs of each specialty. Care training stays free of tuition, and a funding program is to recruit and integrate trainees from abroad. Statewide monitoring is to record why trainees drop out. The state care plan is to make the state of care and staff shortages visible. A mental health support service for care workers is also planned.

The Left wants a drug policy built on health and self-determination that does not criminalize use. Addiction prevention, counseling, and drug checking are to be expanded.

The Left does not want to punish people for using drugs. Health and protecting young people matter more. There should be more counseling against addiction. People should be able to have drugs tested for dangerous substances.

The party wants to curb the misuse of both legal and illegal intoxicants. Support structures for people with addiction and psychosocial care are to be strengthened. Prevention counseling and networking services are to grow, and drug-checking services are to get continuous support. The public is to learn more about the situation of children whose parents have an addiction.