What do the parties in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania say on health and care?

The AfD wants to preserve care for extremely premature babies at the Dietrich Bonhoeffer hospital in Neubrandenburg. It calls for an exemption from the minimum case number set by the Federal Joint Committee, arguing that the rule leads to long transport distances in a rural state.

Neubrandenburg has a hospital unit for babies born very early. A rule requires at least 25 cases a year for this. The AfD wants an exception to this rule. Otherwise families must travel far to other cities.

The AfD wants a parliamentary committee of inquiry to examine the state's COVID policy. In its view, the government has so far only assessed its own actions. An independent assessment is meant to help avoid mistakes in future epidemics.

The AfD wants to look into the COVID years in the state. A committee in the state parliament should do this. The AfD says the government has only checked itself so far. The state should make fewer mistakes in the next epidemic.

The AfD wants to give local decision-makers legal and financial leeway to develop their own health care solutions. These include regional budgets, closer links between outpatient and hospital care, and municipally run doctors' practices. Municipal medical care centers (MVZ) should only be set up where there are gaps.

The AfD wants new ways to provide health care in rural areas. Regions should be allowed to find their own solutions. Towns should also be able to run doctors' offices. But only in places where doctors are missing.

The AfD wants to prevent hospital closures in rural areas, which it fears will result from the federal hospital reform. Basic care, emergency rooms and maternity units are to be secured statewide through individual budget agreements. The two university hospitals are to be strengthened.

The AfD wants to keep hospitals in rural areas. It fears a federal reform will lead to closures. Emergency rooms and maternity wards should stay everywhere. Special funding deals should pay for this.

The AfD wants to tackle the rural doctor shortage with incentives for young physicians, including a student loan that is paid off through work as a rural doctor. The rules for determining undersupply are to be revised and the position of the Kassenärztliche Vereinigungen (associations of statutory health insurance physicians) questioned. Red tape and documentation duties are to be reduced.

Rural areas do not have enough doctors. The AfD wants to bring young doctors there. They should get a loan for their studies. Those who work as rural doctors do not have to pay it back. Doctors should also have less paperwork.

The AfD wants the state's licensing authorities to strictly apply the nationwide standards for doctors with foreign degrees. In addition, language support is to be offered alongside their work. The program justifies this with patient safety.

Doctors from abroad must speak German well. The AfD wants the authorities to check this strictly. These doctors should also be able to keep learning German on the job. This should keep patients safe.

The AfD wants to give more support to grassroots sports as a form of preventive health care. Physical education in schools is to be preserved. Alcohol and drug prevention is to receive lasting funding and organization.

The AfD wants more support for sports for everyone. It says exercise protects against many illnesses. Sports should stay important in school. Programs against alcohol and drug abuse should get secure funding.

The AfD wants to give priority to care at home and introduce a state care allowance once the state's budget situation allows it. An emergency fund of 2.5 million euros is to support outpatient care services. In training, it wants to reverse the generalist nursing program.

Many old people want to be cared for at home. The AfD wants to support that. Later, the state should pay a care allowance for it. An emergency fund should help care services. Care workers should have less paperwork.

The AfD wants to upgrade the public health service (ÖGD) and organize it more efficiently. It is also to offer pregnancy counseling that the program describes as "life-affirming."

The public health offices should become more important. They should also be better organized. The AfD wants to give them a new task: advising pregnant women. The advice should favor having the child.

The Greens want to build a regional health center with interdisciplinary teams in every mid-sized town. Mobile practices, telemedicine, health kiosks and community nurses are meant to strengthen underserved areas. The aim is for care not to depend on where a person lives.

The Greens want health centers in every mid-sized town. Doctors, nurses and therapists work together there. Rural areas should get mobile practices and video appointments. Community nurses should help people where they live.

The Greens want to push ahead with hospital reform and open rural hospitals to outpatient treatment. The state is to adequately fund hospital investment. This is meant to secure care across the whole state.

The Greens want to change the hospitals in the state. Rural hospitals should also treat patients who do not stay overnight. Hospitals should get enough money for buildings and equipment. That way there is help everywhere.

The Greens want to improve working conditions in health and nursing professions and strengthen training. More people should enter and stay in these jobs, and skilled workers from abroad should be integrated faster. The platform sees the cause of the staff shortage in the underlying conditions.

There are not enough skilled workers in nursing and medicine. The Greens want to make these jobs better. There should be enough staff and shifts people can plan for. Training should also be possible part-time. Skilled workers from other countries should be able to start work faster.

The Greens want to attract more skilled workers to health care. They plan more places to study medicine, uniform pay for the practical year of medical training, and faster recognition of foreign qualifications.

The Greens want more trained people in medicine and care. There should be more places to study medicine. Medical students should get paid in their practical year. Degrees from other countries should count faster.

The Greens want to expand psychiatric and psychotherapy services so people get help sooner. They also plan statewide crisis services, more prevention and addiction support, and mental health education in schools.

Many people wait a long time for therapy. The Greens want to create more services. This should make waiting times shorter. Crisis services should offer quick help everywhere. Schools should also look after mental health.

The Greens want a dense statewide network of advice centers close to where people live, so that access to the health system becomes easier. The plan includes health navigators and independent patient representatives in every district.

Many people cannot find the right place in the health system. The Greens want more advice centers close to home. Health guides should show people the way. Every district should get an independent contact person for patients.

The Greens want to make long-term care more reliable with more skilled staff, better training and less bureaucracy. The care support centers are to become a network with mobile teams that also reaches rural areas. The rule requiring burial in a cemetery would also be lifted.

The Greens want to improve care for old and sick people. There should be more trained staff and less paperwork. Mobile teams should visit and advise people in rural areas. The Greens also want to end the cemetery rule. Then urns would no longer have to go to a cemetery.

The Greens want to secure maternity care close to home and improve access to abortion. They also want medicine to focus more on women. The platform justifies this by pointing to what it calls structural unequal treatment of women in health care.

The Greens want birth care close to where people live. Midwives should get more support. Women should get an abortion appointment faster. Medicine should pay more attention to women.

The Left wants to carry out the proposals of the "Pakt für Pflege" (Pact for Care) with state money from a new fund. Home care, counseling and prevention are to be strengthened, especially in sparsely populated areas. At the federal level, it wants care to stop being an investment object for private funds.

The Left wants a state fund for care. Care at home should get more support. Rural areas should also have enough care. Private investors should no longer make profit from care.

The Left wants to strengthen prevention and health literacy, especially among children and young people. First-aid courses in schools are to be expanded and prevention programs made available across the state.

The Left wants people to stay healthy. Children and young people should learn more about health. Schools should offer more first-aid courses. Prevention programs should be available everywhere in the state.

The Left wants to keep and attract more medical staff in the state because many doctors will soon retire. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized faster and young professionals supported in a targeted way.

Many doctors will retire soon. So the Left wants to attract more skilled workers. Degrees from other countries should be accepted faster. Young people studying medicine should get more support.

The Left wants to organize medical care across the state as one connected chain, especially in rural areas. Hospital sites are to be kept during the hospital reform, supplemented by health centers and telemedicine.

The Left wants good care everywhere in the state. This matters most in villages and small towns. Hospitals should stay open. Health centers and video appointments should be added.

The Left wants to prevent profits from operating hospitals and have public money go only into care. In the platform's view, health must not be a commodity; the system is to be financed on a solidarity basis and geared to the common good.

The Left wants no profits from hospitals. Tax money should only pay for care. The party says health is not a product for sale. Everyone should pay together for health and nursing care.

The SPD wants to guarantee basic hospital care in every region of the state. At the same time, hospitals are to specialize more and cooperate more closely to raise quality in particular fields.

The SPD wants to keep hospitals in all regions. Everyone should have a hospital nearby. Some hospitals should focus on certain treatments. Hospitals should work together more.

The SPD wants to use state programs to attract more doctors and other health professionals, especially to rural areas. Among other things, the rural doctor quota for medical school admission is to continue.

The SPD wants to bring more doctors to the state. Doctors are missing mostly in villages. There is a rural doctor quota for this. It means: people who will later work in the countryside get a place in medical school more easily.

The SPD wants to support medical care centers that are not run for profit and make it easier for municipalities to set up their own. Combined with mobile medical teams and telemedicine, this is meant to cover even remote places.

The SPD wants more medical centers in the countryside. Towns should be able to set up such centers more easily. Teams of doctors travel from there to the villages. Video appointments should help too.

The SPD wants to push for a statewide model that makes it easier for people without adequate health insurance to see a doctor. At its core are an anonymous treatment voucher and outpatient services.

Some people have no health insurance. The SPD wants to help them. They should get a voucher for the doctor. They do not have to give their name. Advice centers help them get back into insurance.

The SPD wants to continue preventive health work in the state and calls on the federal government for an addiction prevention program whose funds go to municipalities. It also pushes for more research on Long Covid and related illnesses and for a strong public health service.

The SPD wants people to stay healthy. Children should learn about healthy food. The federal government should give money to fight addiction. Illnesses like Long Covid should be studied more. Public health offices should stay strong.

The SPD wants to press at the federal level for a comprehensive reform of long-term care insurance because, in its view, needing care is a poverty risk. In the state, the Pakt für Pflege (care pact) is to continue permanently, and care in familiar surroundings is to take priority.

Care costs a lot of money. Some people become poor because of it. So the SPD wants to change long-term care insurance. People should be cared for at home when possible. There should be new forms of housing and more help from neighbors.

The SPD wants to push for legally guaranteed care leave during which family caregivers receive wage replacement payments. It argues that most care is provided at home.

Many people care for relatives at home. The SPD wants to help them. They should get care leave. During that time they get money to replace their wages.

The SPD wants to further develop the two university medical centers in Greifswald and Rostock and invest in buildings and equipment. They are to play a central role in the state's health care planning. They are also to train skilled staff and keep them in the state.

The SPD wants to strengthen the university hospitals in Greifswald and Rostock. The state should pay for buildings and equipment. The hospitals should be important for care across the state. They should also train doctors and nurses.

The SPD supports a health data platform in the state so that researchers can exchange data more easily. Telemedicine is to be expanded because, in the program's view, this is the only way to secure care across the whole state in the long run.

The SPD wants a platform for health data. Researchers should be able to share data there more easily. Telemedicine should also grow. Telemedicine means doctors treat patients by video or online. This should secure care in rural areas.

The SPD wants to press the federal government for a tax on soft drinks and other foods with a lot of sugar. The higher price is meant to steer buying behavior. The program cites other European countries as a model.

The SPD wants a tax on drinks and food with a lot of sugar. Then these products cost more. That way people should buy less of them. Other countries in Europe already have such a tax. The federal government decides on this.