SPD on health and care

The SPD wants a systematic review of the social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the protective measures. To do this, the Thuringian state parliament is to set up an Enquete-Kommission (a parliamentary study commission). The platform considers Thuringia's handling of the pandemic a success but still sees a need for a review.

The SPD wants to look back at the COVID years. The state parliament should set up a commission for this. The commission should study the effects of the pandemic. It should also study the effects of the COVID rules. The focus is on vulnerable people.

The commission is to collect and evaluate data on the effects of the pandemic and of the response to it, both in numbers and in qualitative terms. The focus is on the well-being of vulnerable groups and their relatives. It is also to examine how the institutions these groups depend on most were able to function. The result is to be conclusions for the state of Thuringia.

The SPD wants to support Jena University Hospital with guaranteed annual funding increases and a third construction phase. This is meant to improve patient care, especially emergency medicine, as well as conditions for study, teaching and research.

The SPD wants to strengthen the university hospital in Jena. The hospital should get more money every year. More buildings should be added. This should improve care for sick people, especially in emergencies.

Like the universities, the hospital would receive annual compensation for science-related cost increases plus one percent extra as a strategy budget. At the federal level, the SPD wants hospital financing to better reflect the special tasks of university hospitals, such as coordination, networking with rural hospitals, pandemic preparedness and rare diseases. Working hours for nursing staff at university hospitals are to be aligned between eastern and western Germany. The SPD also backs setting up the Center for Mental Health as a German Center for Health Research.

The SPD wants to keep all hospital and care sites in Thuringia and to prevent further privatization of municipal hospitals. A special fund of 100 million euros is to enable networked, digital care close to where people live.

The SPD wants to keep all hospitals in Thuringia. Hospitals owned by cities and counties should not go to private companies. There should be an extra 100 million euros for modern care. Doctor guides should help bring doctors to rural areas.

The fund is to promote cross-sector, energy-efficient care; a dedicated ministry unit is to advise providers on networking. The SPD wants to fund local health centers in public ownership or as primary care centers and gradually reduce the divide between outpatient and inpatient treatment. Every county and independent city is to have doctor guides who help organize practice handovers and new practices in rural areas. Hospital investment is to depend primarily on quality and on whether staff are covered by collective agreements. Hospital digitalization is to continue, including a telemedicine network for heart attacks.

The SPD wants to reduce bottlenecks in psychotherapy for children and adolescents, which the program says grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. Easily accessible support is to be expanded, and schools and kindergartens are to be made aware of possible problems early on.

Many children and teenagers wait a long time for mental health therapy. The SPD wants more help that is easy to reach. Schools and kindergartens should watch for problems early. The first talk with a therapist should also be possible by video.

The party backs a demand by the East German Chamber of Psychotherapists. It wants to create better conditions for more social therapy practices and social psychiatric services for young people. Video consultations are to be expanded; even the first contact with child and adolescent psychotherapists should be possible this way. According to the program, this would make therapists from all over Germany available.

The SPD wants to push at state and federal level for quality and reliable provision in maternity care. It plans a tiered system with easily reachable maternity wards across the state and enough well-trained midwives.

The SPD wants women everywhere in Thuringia to be able to reach a maternity clinic. Small and large clinics should work closely together. There should be enough midwives. Their job should become more attractive. An overview should compare all maternity clinics in plain language.

Smaller maternity clinics are to handle only the births they are equipped for and to cooperate closely with clinics at other levels. Maternity clinics that are needed are to be kept available. The midwife profession is to become more attractive, mainly through better working conditions. Clinics and gynecologists are to be more closely linked. An independent body is to publish a "birth guide" on services, staffing and quality at all maternity clinics.

The SPD wants to strengthen the public health service, meaning above all the local health offices, for the long term. To do so, more future doctors are to be recruited for this work, including through course content and a scholarship.

The SPD wants to strengthen the public health offices. Medical school should teach more about public health. Part of the training should be possible in a health office. Students who want to work there later should get a scholarship. That is money for their studies.

The measures are to be worked out together with counties, independent cities and the state association of public health doctors and dentists. Medical studies are to be supplemented with public health content. Parts of practical training and specialization are to be possible in health offices. A chair for public health is planned at Jena University Hospital. Modeled on the "Thüringen Stipendium," the state is to fund students who choose this service.

The SPD wants to put the public health service (ÖGD) on the footing of a dedicated state law, replacing the current regulation as its basis. Local health offices are to get a uniform minimum staffing level, and employees are to be paid better.

Local health offices are part of the public health service. The SPD wants a new state law for it. Every office should have enough staff. The workers should get better pay.

The state is to press the collective bargaining parties for higher pay in the public health service and create additional incentives. Health offices are to be able to form cooperations and joint associations with state support. Prevention is to get more weight, especially for vulnerable groups such as people in precarious jobs, the unemployed, children, and people with disabilities. The minimum staffing level is also to apply to the supervising state authority.

The SPD wants to advance research and treatment for post-COVID and long COVID and set up contact points across the state for illnesses that follow viral infections. It also plans a statewide strategy for addiction prevention.

Some people stay sick for a long time after COVID. This is called long COVID. The SPD wants help centers for them everywhere in the state. Doctors should get more training on it. The SPD also wants a plan to prevent addiction.

The platform assumes an estimated 50,000 people in Thuringia are affected by post-COVID and long COVID. Research and care are to be advanced together with all medical providers, and family doctors and specialists are to receive further training. Diagnoses such as long COVID and ME/CFS are to be recognized faster, especially by the state's benefits offices. On addiction prevention, the SPD wants to draw up a state strategy and examine whether to set up a central coordination office.

The SPD wants to cut energy and resource use in health care, which the platform says accounts for an estimated five percent of CO2 emissions. To do so, it plans investments in sustainable infrastructure, above all buildings.

Hospitals and clinics use a lot of energy. That harms the climate. The SPD wants to spend money on better buildings. Health care should use fewer materials.

The platform names the guiding ideas of “One Health” and “Planetary Health,” to be applied in all areas of medicine; they link the health of people, animals, and the environment. Support is to go to “Green Hospital” concepts, environmentally conscious nutrition, and a state action plan for heat protection. The platform sets the goal of a sustainable health care system in Thuringia by 2045.

The SPD wants to keep pharmacy coverage across the state, strengthen pharmacy training, and create incentives for opening pharmacies in underserved areas. New professional roles are also meant to ease the load on doctors.

The SPD wants to keep pharmacies everywhere in the state. More people should be able to become pharmacists. People who open a pharmacy in a rural area should get help. New health jobs should take work off doctors.

The SPD backs the planned new building for the Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Jena in order to address the shortage of pharmacists. New roles such as community health nurse and community emergency paramedic are to be developed and therapy professions strengthened so that efficient treatment networks emerge. Therapy professions are to get support in aligning with European standards, for example through university-level training.

The SPD wants to fund the Anonymer Krankenschein Thüringen (anonymous health voucher) on a permanent basis and open it to people without health insurance. Funding is to rise in line with need.

With the anonymous health voucher, people can see a doctor without giving their name. The SPD wants to pay for it permanently. People without health insurance should be able to use it too. There should be more money for it.

Besides the anonymous health voucher, the platform lists further plans for care. Hospice services are to be strengthened further. For emergency care, the SPD wants to use digital tools and fund an app that alerts first responders nearby.

The SPD wants to limit the share of care costs that people in need of care must pay themselves. As a first step, these out-of-pocket shares are to be frozen at today's level and anything above reimbursed, so that care, in the party's view, does not become a poverty risk.

Care in a nursing home costs a lot. People pay part of it themselves. The SPD wants to limit that part. At first it should stop rising. People should get back what they pay above that.

The SPD sees the cap as a step toward a Bürgerversicherung (a single insurance system for everyone). In a second step, an alliance for care is to be formed with representatives from all areas of care and those affected. It is to develop conditions in care further and determine how high a socially acceptable cap should be. An additional state investment program is to fund energy retrofits of nursing homes and thereby lower the investment charge passed on to residents.

The SPD wants to support family caregivers with outreach advice that is regionally networked, turning the care support centers into mobile services. The state is also to fund additional short-term care places, because the lack of them, according to the platform, overburdens many relatives.

Many people care for family members at home. The SPD wants to help them. Advisers should come to the families. There should be more places for short-term care. Then caregivers can take a break.

The platform speaks of more than 80,000 family caregivers in Thuringia. The support centers are to work closely with services such as Agathe, village caretakers, neighborhood help, and health kiosks; the state is to co-fund one center per county and independent city with up to 25,000 euros a year. The SPD aims for a booking service for short-term care places modeled on an app from North Rhine-Westphalia. Providers are to receive partial compensation when planned short-term guests cancel. The regulation on neighborhood help is to be simplified and aligned with other states.

The SPD wants to appoint a state-level commissioner for care and patients who acts as an ombudsperson and reports regularly on the state of care. Publicly available regional care statistics are to form the basis for statewide care planning.

The SPD wants a new office for care and patients. People can turn to it with problems. The office should write regular reports. There should also be exact numbers on care in every region.

The statistics are to be collected regularly and show the need for short-term and respite care as well as for the rest of the care infrastructure. They also serve as the basis for funding additional services. The commissioner's reports go to the state parliament and the public. In addition, quality results of Thuringia's nursing homes are to be published regularly in an easy-to-understand, low-barrier form.