Care reform:
CDA Neunkirchen calls for sustainable improvements in the care of severely ill dependent persons and to relieve their relatives!
The Christian Democratic Employees' Association (CDA) in the Neunkirchen district association welcomes the demand of the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament to financially relieve care-dependent persons and their relatives more in terms of co-payments for nursing home places and sees the key to this in the assumption of investment costs. “As part of the total costs of a nursing home place, these could indeed be covered by the state,” affirms CDA district chairman Thomas Schmitt, endorsing the demand of the deputy chairman and health policy spokesman of the CDU parliamentary group, Alwin Theobald.
Furthermore, CDA Neunkirchen calls for the current reform policy to also be used to achieve noticeable improvements in care. One group that particularly needs improved care and relief for their relatives are severely ill dependent persons. CDA district chairman Thomas Schmitt makes it clear: “Caring relatives of severely ill dependent persons with greatly limited life expectancy face especially severe burdens, including organizational ones, unlike those caring for age-related dependent persons, and this happens within a relatively short period.” Serious illnesses such as life-limiting cancers are often diagnosed with little advance warning and in the further course of the disease frequently involve significantly changed demands on caring relatives. “The reform must finally make a distinction between severely ill dependent persons and those who are dependent purely due to age. Now is the chance to address sustainable improvements in care and specifically also noticeable relief for the relatives of severely ill, dependent persons,” Schmitt emphasizes.
Therefore, CDA Neunkirchen has formulated specific demands which it also intends to adopt at this year’s CDA Saar state congress on August 28 in Ensdorf: ● A broad relief from bureaucratic requirements for caring relatives, such as the abolition of the application requirement for co-payment exemption for medications, aids, hospital stays, etc., through the introduction of a simplified severely ill regulation.
- The abolition of the follow-up prescription requirement for accessing Specialized Outpatient Palliative Care (SAPV).
- In the reform of care assessments by the Medical Service, specifically exempt severely ill dependent persons from stricter restrictions in future care grade classification by giving greater consideration to the individual medical condition.
- In the tiered service surcharges and the planned extension of length-of-stay stages in the care reform, exempt severely ill dependent persons in fully inpatient care facilities, decouple them fundamentally from the length of stay, and grant them from the outset the highest percentage surcharge (75% surcharge on the co-payment) to relieve them and their relatives financially as quickly as possible.
- The abolition of the 6-month limit for the initial utilization of respite care as well as the retention of respite care in its current form. In principle, there must be no deadline anymore for severely ill dependent persons for the first utilization, not even with the introduction of a “bridge budget,” which is supposed to come as part of the care reform.
The Christian Democratic Employees' Association (CDA) is the social wing of the CDU. Its members are primarily committed to fields of social policy such as labor market, pensions, care, and health. Further information is available on the Internet at www.cda-bund.de.
