SPD on health and care

The SPD wants to increase state funding for hospitals to about one billion euros and fund nursing homes better. Pediatric care and obstetrics are to be financed according to medical need.

The SPD wants to give hospitals more money. The state should pay about one billion euros. Nursing homes should also get enough money. The same goes for children's medicine and for births.

State support for hospitals is to rise to roughly one billion euros. The SPD wants nursing homes to be adequately funded. For pediatric medicine and obstetrics, medical need is to be the yardstick for funding.

The SPD wants to use the hospital reform to reduce the weight of per-case flat rates and secure care across the whole state. Small municipal hospitals in rural areas and maternity wards are to be kept. To that end, it seeks statewide health planning across all areas of care.

The SPD wants to keep hospitals all over Bavaria. Small rural hospitals should get help. Maternity wards and midwives should be available everywhere. Today hospitals mostly get a fixed sum per treatment. That should matter less.

The SPD wants to support the upcoming hospital reform constructively and sees it as a chance to move away from commercialization and privatization. Long-term, needs-based hospital planning is to be backed by investment funds that also cover energy retrofits and affordable housing for staff. Maternity hospitals and midwife services are to be secured everywhere. Planning is to span family doctors, specialists, publicly run health centers, nursing care and rehab. More medical school places and incentives are meant to bring doctors to rural regions, and the SPD backs remote emergency physicians for rural emergency care. Care for children and adolescents is to be secured.

The SPD wants to phase out temporary agency work in nursing care completely and achieve collective bargaining coverage across the health and care sector. Binding staffing rules and better training conditions are meant to ease the load on workers. The platform cites staff shortages and chronic overwork as the reason.

The SPD wants to end temp work in nursing care. In temp work, an agency lends workers to other employers. All workers should get equal pay. There should be fixed rules on how many staff are needed. Training should get better.

Equal pay and equal treatment for all workers are meant to offset disadvantages for permanent staff, for example in pay and shift work, and thus bring temp work down to zero. On collective bargaining coverage, the SPD sides with the unions. To ease workloads, the platform lists binding staffing rules, relief through working-time arrangements, suitable childcare, and incentives to return to the job or increase part-time hours. Training in nursing and health professions is to receive investment, with regulated further training and career paths. Training in fields such as speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy is to follow the Vocational Training Act.

The SPD wants to lower costs for people needing care and push at the federal level for long-term care insurance that covers all costs, starting with a cap on out-of-pocket payments. Family caregivers are to get a wage-replacement benefit and more relief services, among other things. In the SPD's view, care must be left neither to the market nor to municipalities alone.

The SPD wants care to cost less for those who need it. Later, care insurance should pay all care costs. First, people's own share should get an upper limit. People who care for relatives should get money to replace lost wages. Every county should have a place for advice.

The state of Bavaria is to co-finance or take over the investment costs of nursing homes. In the Bundesrat, the SPD wants a cap on out-of-pocket payments from the first month of needing care. For family caregivers, the platform plans a wage-replacement benefit, care support centers in every county, more day care and new night care places. A funding program for care hotels is meant to let people needing care travel together with their relatives. Ongoing monitoring is to show how supply and demand develop.

The SPD wants to expand the public health service in staff and digital equipment and focus it on reducing health inequality. Health kiosks offering advice in several languages are to open in disadvantaged areas. Women with unwanted pregnancies are also to have access to abortion services close to home.

The SPD wants to strengthen public health offices. They should get more staff and better technology. Poorer areas should get health kiosks. People can get advice there in several languages. Women with an unwanted pregnancy should be able to get an abortion near home.

The public health service is to get more staff, uniform digital equipment, added powers and a new mission statement, with a focus on prevention and health promotion. The barrier-free health kiosks are to connect people with doctors' offices, hospitals and care facilities and offer prevention programs. The health system is to take all genders into account, and gender medicine is to be strengthened in research and teaching. The SPD wants to examine and fix the weaknesses of public health offices that became visible during the pandemic.

The SPD wants to close gaps in psychotherapy care, especially for children and adolescents, and anchor crisis services in law. The number of involuntary psychiatric placements is to fall, and coercive measures are to be avoided as far as possible. A state psychiatry advisory board is to safeguard quality.

The SPD wants more help for people with mental illness. Children and teens should get therapy faster. Crisis services should be written into law. Fewer people should be placed in psychiatric care against their will. A new advisory board should advise politicians.

Easy-access health services for homeless people and people with chronic mental illness are to be expanded. The SPD supports local, cooperative care structures and approaches that do without locked inpatient facilities. The crisis services under Bavaria's mental health assistance law (PsychKHG) are to get enough staff and organization to do their job. The rights and participation of those affected are to be strengthened. The state psychiatry advisory board is to advise, safeguard quality and provide impetus for further development.

The SPD wants to set up supervised drug consumption rooms in Bavaria and allow drug checking, meaning the testing of drugs for their contents. It intends to vote for cannabis legalization in the Bundesrat. The platform calls this a progressive drug and addiction policy.

The SPD wants rooms where people can take drugs under supervision. People should be able to have drugs tested for dangerous substances. The SPD wants to vote for legal cannabis in the Bundesrat. Schools should teach more about addiction.

Besides consumption rooms and drug checking, the SPD announces it will approve the legalization of cannabis in the chamber of the states. The interstate gambling treaty is to be revised. Addiction prevention in schools and other educational institutions is to be improved.

The SPD wants to regulate how much profit private operators of hospitals, nursing homes and medical care centers may take out. Hospitals and homes are to return to municipal ownership more often, and privatizations are to be made harder. The platform argues that health is a human right, not a commodity.

The SPD wants to limit profits of private hospitals and nursing homes. The money should first go into better care. Cities and counties should be able to run hospitals themselves again. A new complaints office should help uncover fraud.

Profits are to flow back primarily into the quality of care. Returning hospitals and inpatient care facilities to municipal ownership is to be supported. To guard against unlawful and criminal practices, the responsible authorities are to be strengthened and used more effectively. A central complaints office is also to protect whistleblowers and work with health insurers and staff representatives.

The SPD wants state-owned hospitals to provide good care for women with unwanted pregnancies and to offer abortions. It also wants to keep maternity services in rural areas, improve midwife coverage and create a professorship for gender-sensitive medicine.

Some women are pregnant and do not want to be. State hospitals should help them well, including with an abortion. Rural areas should keep their maternity wards. There should be enough midwives everywhere.

Hospitals owned by the state of Bavaria are to perform abortions and give the women concerned good medical care. Maternity facilities in rural areas are to be kept close to home and at high quality. The SPD wants to improve midwife coverage across Bavaria. A chair is to be set up at a Bavarian university to anchor sex and gender differences in medical training and research.

The SPD wants to reform long-term care insurance so that all occupational groups and types of income pay in. The state of Bavaria is to cover investment costs, residents' own contributions in care homes are to be capped, and age-appropriate housing is to be promoted.

Care in a nursing home costs a lot of money. The SPD wants everyone to pay into care insurance. There should be a limit on what residents pay themselves. Older people should be able to stay in their homes for a long time.

Revenue in the pay-as-you-go system is to rise by including every occupational group and kind of income. In Bavaria, the state is to cover investment costs. Further plans include preventive home visits for people over 75, a digitalization program for care facilities, more care support centers and a state palliative care program. The SPD wants to promote accessible and affordable apartments, new forms of housing and senior cooperatives. Multigenerational centers and neighborhood management are to be secured financially.