SPD on health and care

The SPD wants to bring the Gießen-Marburg university hospital, sold in 2006, out of private ownership, using all legal means available to the state. In its view, hospitals should be run on a nonprofit or public-law basis. According to the program, privatization has harmed patients, staff, the state budget, and research and teaching.

The SPD wants to take back the Gießen-Marburg university hospital. A private company has owned it since 2006. The SPD says this was bad for patients and staff. Hospitals should not work for profit. They should belong to the public.

The program sees health as part of basic public services and as a government task that should not be left to the market alone. Areas already privatized are to be strictly monitored. The SPD accuses the private operator of broken promises and states that the state now pays more than the sale brought in at the time. The party rejects profits made at the expense of care and staff.

The SPD wants to secure outpatient care by general practitioners, specialists, pediatricians and psychotherapists across the state, especially in rural areas. More places to study medicine are to be created, and the state and municipalities are to get more planning powers. Uninsured people and refugees are to gain access to treatment through an anonymous health voucher.

The SPD wants enough doctors everywhere. This matters most for villages and small towns. There should be more places to study medicine. People with mental illness should get help faster. People without health insurance should also be able to see a doctor.

The SPD expects the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung (the association of statutory health insurance physicians) to create attractive conditions for opening practices in rural regions and to plan needs at a small-scale level. Studies and training are to become more practical, with less red tape and part-time options. Counseling centers, addiction services, the social psychiatric service and outpatient psychotherapy are to be better linked; for severe crises, home treatment and day-clinic care are also planned. Clearing offices are to be set up statewide, and access to medicine and care is to be barrier-free.

The SPD wants to fund hospitals' investment costs according to need and establish hospital planning for Hesse. Outpatient and inpatient care are to be more closely linked, supplemented by municipal care centers and telemedicine. The on-call medical service is to be strengthened rather than cut.

The SPD wants to give hospitals enough money for investments. The state should plan better where hospitals are needed. Every county should get a tele-emergency doctor. That is an emergency doctor who helps by video. The doctors' on-call service should get stronger.

The goal is basic care close to home combined with centralized high-performance medicine. Locally, municipal medical care centers, health kiosks and health guides, community nurses and care support centers are to secure services. Tele-emergency doctors and community paramedics are planned for every county. Health conferences, health reports and care atlases are to become mandatory. The model of a shared front desk for the on-call service and the hospital in Frankfurt-Höchst is to be rolled out statewide; the SPD wants to examine uniform powers for emergency medical services.

The SPD wants to address the shortage of skilled workers in health care with more training and university places, appropriate pay and minimum staffing standards. Collectively agreed pay raises are to be fully refinanced, and temp work in nursing reduced as far as possible. The program warns that the shortage puts lives at risk.

The SPD wants more nurses and caregivers. There should be more training places. There should be fixed rules on the minimum number of staff. Higher wages should be fully paid for. There should be less temp work in nursing.

Training for nursing assistants is to be strengthened and the assistant courses adequately funded. To counter the shortage of teachers for nursing and health professions, the SPD plans scholarships, funding programs and degree programs for retraining, as well as interim solutions for nursing schools. Recognition of nurses' qualifications is to be sped up. Less red tape is meant to give staff more time for patients.

The SPD wants a state care plan to expand care close to home and give family caregivers better support. It envisions more places in outpatient care, day care, short-term care and respite care, as well as care support centers across the state. A strategy to prevent the need for care is meant to let people live at home longer.

The SPD wants a plan for care in Hesse. There should be more care places close to home. Family members who give care should get more help. There should be care support centers everywhere. These are offices that give advice about care.

The SPD wants to draw up the state care plan together with practitioners, researchers and municipalities. The program stresses that home care is mostly provided by women. Care support centers are to take on more tasks, and case management is to guide those affected through the support system. Mobilizing and rehabilitative care is to be promoted in order to lower care levels. Digitalization and assistive technology are meant to give staff more time for the people they care for.

The SPD wants maternity wards to be within easy reach for expectant parents and every woman in labor to have one-on-one care from a midwife. Midwives are to be paid better, and more training places are to be created.

The SPD wants better help during childbirth. Every woman should have her own midwife during birth. Maternity wards should be close to home. Midwives should get more pay.

The platform calls for one-on-one care during birth and maternity services close to where people live. Fees and salaries for midwives are to rise to reflect their high level of responsibility. It plans a midwife registry, a strategy against shortages in rural areas, care planning, and more training places. A study is to improve the data on violence during childbirth in Hesse. Counseling is also to be funded, parent-child clinics strengthened, and the option of a confidential birth made better known.

The SPD wants women anywhere in Hesse to be able to reach a practice or clinic that performs abortions within one hour by public transit. The same is to apply to recognized pregnancy conflict counseling centers. People on low incomes are to have contraceptives and hygiene products paid for.

The SPD wants women to reach an abortion provider quickly. The trip by bus or train should take one hour at most. The same goes for counseling centers. Poor people should get contraceptives for free.

The platform treats abortion services and conflict counseling as part of local health care. Counseling centers are to be funded according to need. All medical students are to learn abortion methods. There are to be quickly reachable contact points across the state for emergency medical help after rape. For people on low incomes, the SPD wants to cover the cost of contraceptives and hygiene products and hand them out in an easily accessible way.

The SPD wants an action plan to secure medical care for children through midwives, pediatric practices, and children's hospitals. It argues that many parents cannot find a pediatrician and that about a quarter of practices could disappear by 2025.

Many parents cannot find a children's doctor. So the SPD wants a plan for children's medicine. Children should get good care from midwives, doctors, and hospitals.

According to the platform, overcrowded practices turn parents away even though they are required to take their children to routine checkups. Around 150 pediatricians are said to be retiring without finding a successor. The action plan is also meant to implement children's rights to well-being and to physical and mental integrity. Midwifery services are to be kept and expanded so that children are protected from the start.

The SPD wants to give local public health offices more money, better pay, and digital equipment. Health is to be considered in every policy area, and a heat action plan is to protect people from the effects of climate change.

The SPD wants to strengthen public health offices. They should get more money and modern computers. Staff should earn more. A plan should protect people in extreme heat.

The platform sees public health offices as key institutions for prevention, infection control, child and youth health, and social psychiatric help. It plans a funding program called "Gesundheit im Quartier" (health in the neighborhood). Because the SPD holds that poverty makes people sick, medicine, nursing care, prevention, and social work are to cooperate closely. Health literacy is to be strengthened in daycare, schools, workplaces, and self-help groups. The heat action plan is meant to protect older people, small children, and people with impairments in particular.

The SPD wants to push at every political level for a solidarity-based Bürgerversicherung (a single health insurance for everyone) to end what it calls two-tier medicine. In Hesse, civil servants are to be able to choose between public and private health insurance.

The SPD wants a Bürgerversicherung. That is one shared health insurance for everyone. In Hesse, civil servants should be able to choose. They can then have public or private insurance.

A Bürgerversicherung would replace the parallel system of public and private insurers with one common scheme. Because this is a matter of federal law, the SPD says it will campaign for it at all levels. As the state's own step, the platform names the right of Hessian civil servants to choose their type of insurance.