Русская версияThe ambitious scheme could create up to 10,000 new jobs for
long-term unemployed people in the health care sector, who are
getting basic training to look after dementia patients.
A new German law that was introduced on July 1 has freed up funds
from Germany's nursing care system to pay for the positions.
The
German federal labor office has now started offering training
courses for interested long-term unemployed, who receive some 160
hours of instruction to be able to work with patients.
They have to have been unemployed for at least 12 months and show
an interest in working in a nursing home, according to a report in
German daily
Sueddeutsche Zeitung
. After the training, they will be able to work as nursing care
assistants, performing tasks such as reading to patients, talking
with them or running errands for them.
A brazen proposal?
Geriatric care experts, who said that care assistants need to have
at least 900 hours of training, were outraged by the proposal.
"To equate dementia with handicrafts, reading to people and walking
them is brazen," Helmut Wallrafen-Dreisow, a member of the German
Board for Geriatric Care. "The health care companies want to get
things done cheap, but nursing homes are meant to fulfill highest
standards. That doesn't work."
Dirk Niebel, a leading member of Germany's opposition free-market
liberal Free Democratic Party called the move "labor-market policy
charlatanism." Germany's unemployment figures have risen slightly
after several years of steady decline.
"The fact that someone's unemployed alone is no qualification for a
job in the health care sector," he told mass tabloid
Bild am Sonntag.
Better than nothing?
Bildunterschrift:
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
Ulla Schmidt defends the plan
But German Health Minister Ulla Schmidt defended the project. She
said that many people with dementia are currently cared for by
volunteers, who have received no training whatsoever.
She also said that many of those interested in participating in the
trainings already had experience working in the health care sector.
"For many unemployed people, a job in a nursing home is a chance to
rejoin the old line of work," Schmidt told DPA news agency. "That's
especially true for women."
Experts doubt, however, that labor office officials will find
enough people to fill the positions. According to
Sueddeutsche Zeitung
, 10,157 vacant positions are currently registered with the office
nationwide -- despite the fact that some 30,000 health care workers
are currently registered as unemployed.
(Deutsche Welle)
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