SPD on health and care

The SPD wants to raise state funding for hospital investment by 60 percent and plan hospitals so that basic hospital care is no more than a 30-minute drive away. It opposes closures it considers irresponsible. Outsourced hospital work is to be brought back in-house.

The SPD wants to spend more money on hospitals. Everyone should reach a hospital within 30 minutes by car. There should be maternity care everywhere in the state. Outsourced jobs should return to the hospitals.

State investment funding is to rise from about 500 million to 800 million euros. An expert commission is to draw up a "Future Plan Hospitals 2040" together with counties, municipalities and health care stakeholders. The SPD commits to maternity care across the state and wants to support care centers that combine outpatient and inpatient services, as well as emergency response stations. At university hospitals, the share of doctors on permanent contracts is to rise from 20 to 50 percent in the next legislative term. Outsourcing of staff and tasks is to be stopped and reversed, and residency training in hospitals is to be funded and anchored in state law.

The SPD wants to secure local outpatient medical care and make filling vacant statutory-insurance physician positions a top priority. The physicians' on-call service is to be reachable within a 30-minute drive everywhere. Urgent care practices threatened with closure in 2025 are to be kept or reopened.

The SPD wants more doctors in local areas. The on-call doctor service should be 30 minutes away by car at most. Threatened urgent care practices should stay open or reopen. A foundation should support doctors' offices.

The program says the SPD will use every legal and political means to make the associations of statutory health insurance physicians and dentists (KVBW and KZV BW) fulfill their duty to provide care statewide. Needs planning is to consider local demographics and the local care situation in addition to patient numbers. The SPD advocates founding a foundation to preserve outpatient medical care and counter the shortage of doctors. The number of funded outpatient residency positions is to grow considerably.

The SPD wants people with mental illness to get outpatient or inpatient treatment faster. Local services and community psychiatry are to be strengthened. For mentally ill people who pose a danger, it supports court-ordered outpatient treatment.

People with mental illness often wait a long time for help. The SPD wants to make this wait shorter. There should be more help close to home. Some ill people are a danger to others. For them, treatment with medication could be ordered.

Acute hospital treatment, follow-up care and outpatient support are to connect seamlessly, and outpatient needs are to be planned realistically. Local services are to be adequately funded. The SPD wants to provide enough staff and space for forensic psychiatric detention (Maßregelvollzug). An outpatient treatment order is to be introduced on a legally sound basis; this means mandated medication for people with long-term mental illness who pose a danger. According to the program, this is meant to increase safety and avoid involuntary hospital stays.

The SPD wants to promote prevention and health education in municipalities, daycare centers and schools. The public health service is to be reoriented and given more staff. In socially disadvantaged areas, health kiosks are to be set up as easily accessible points of contact.

The SPD wants to do more for prevention. Schools should have first aiders. Public health offices should get more staff. Poorer neighborhoods should get health kiosks. People can get advice there on illness and care.

The plans include first aiders at schools and prevention networks modeled on the state working group for dental health. The social dimension of health promotion is to get more attention, including gender-sensitive and queer-sensitive aspects. The SPD treats health as a task for all policy areas ("Health in All Policies"). The public health service is to become a point of contact for prevention work. The program justifies the kiosks by saying that in some neighborhoods almost half of residents have no family doctor.

The SPD wants to create 500 additional medical school places through the rural doctors program and abolish tuition fees for training in the therapy professions. Skilled and assistant staff for health care and nursing are to be actively recruited, including abroad. Foreign professional qualifications are to be recognized free of charge and faster.

The SPD wants 500 new places to study medicine. People training for therapy jobs should no longer pay school fees. The state should bring in care workers from other countries. Foreign qualifications should be accepted quickly and at no cost.

Conditions in the final practical year of medical school are to improve, with pay aligned to the maximum BAföG (student aid) rate. Specially trained professionals such as community health nurses are to take on tasks so far reserved for doctors. The SPD aims to train nurses abroad for work in the state while also raising training capacity at home. More people are to start nursing assistant training and then move on to a shortened skilled-nurse program. To support culturally sensitive care, the employment of people with migrant backgrounds is to be promoted, and working conditions in nursing are to improve.

The SPD wants to pay family caregivers a salary that is subject to social insurance contributions. Residents' own share of costs in nursing homes and assisted shared housing is to fall, with the state again funding investment costs. Home care, day care, short-term care and hospices are to be expanded.

Many people care for relatives at home. The SPD wants to pay them a salary for this. Care in a nursing home should cost residents less. The state should give money to nursing homes for this. There should be more hospices.

Under the name "GemeindeschwesterPlus" (community nurse plus), nursing professionals are to make preventive home visits to older people across the state. Binding local and regional care planning is to be developed with the care conferences. Quality in homes and shared housing is to be enforced through regulatory law; residents are to have more say, and all homes are to have Wi-Fi. An impartial ombuds office is to strengthen the rights of patients and people needing care. Every city and county is to have at least one inpatient hospice.

The SPD wants better funding for addiction prevention and counseling, especially for young people. People with addictions are to receive health care, including clean equipment, drug analysis and supervised consumption rooms. According to the program, the aim is less drug use without punishing users.

The SPD wants more money for addiction counseling. Young people in particular should get help. People who use drugs should be able to have them tested. There should be rooms for safer drug use. Smoke should not bother anyone outside restaurants.

Prevention through addiction services is to reach children, teenagers and young adults in particular. Supervised consumption rooms are to be set up where there is need. Counseling for relatives of people with addictions, especially children and teenagers, is to be strengthened and better funded. In outdoor seating areas of restaurants and cafés, either smoking is to be banned or a smoking corner arranged so that nonsmokers are not bothered.

The SPD wants gynecological care close to home without long waits and reliably funded maternity care. Abortions are to be free of charge and available within reasonable distance everywhere in the state. The party bases this on women's right to self-determination.

Women should find good gynecologists close to home. Midwives and birth centers should get more support. An abortion should cost nothing. It should be possible everywhere in the state. Counseling should also be offered online.

Births and sensitive procedures, for example for fibroids, ectopic pregnancies or cancer, are not to be shifted too far into outpatient settings. The situation of freelance hospital midwives is to improve; regional networks and midwife-led birth centers and delivery rooms will be supported. Abortion is to be part of medical education and residency training. Abortion care is to become part of the state's binding hospital planning. A statewide platform is to provide information on where abortions are offered.