There are renewed calls for more funding for 24-hour care at home. Many of those affected would not be able to afford care at home with the current amount and would have to go to a nursing home, which is more expensive and undesirable, says Thomas Blaindorfer of the placement agency “Pflegebörse”.
De Groene healthcare spokesperson Bedrana Ribo sees some merit in the request, but also referred to the steps that have been taken in the healthcare sector.
Blaindorfer would like to see the funding amount doubled; this would be a significant improvement. In the joint APA interview, Ribo also agreed with the desire for an increase, but would not agree to the doubling.
24-hour assistance is barely affordable
Blaindorfer, founder and director of the “Pflegebörse,” estimates that only about ten percent of those affected can afford even the cheaper offers. If a person in need of care moves into an inpatient facility, pension and care allowances are withheld, but the rest is financed by the public sector – and the cost per care place in the home is considerably higher than the cost of 24-hour care. care. “I would have liked to understand better why this is the only alternative,” said Blaindorfer, who also referred to existing supplementary funding in individual states such as Burgenland and Vorarlberg.
If you assume an average pension amount of 1,800 euros and care level 3, where you receive approximately 550 euros in healthcare allowance plus 800 euros in support for employing two self-employed informal caregivers, then your disposable monthly income is 3,150 euros.
In the best case scenario, such as when run by his agency, 24-hour care costs about $3,000; in other cases, the cost can be higher, about $4,000. In either case, that’s usually not affordable, Blaindorfer says, and then there are other costs for housing, supplies, medications, etc. The total cost of a nursing home placement would be about $5,000 to $6,000, Blaindorfer says.
Call for an ‘honesty bonus’
In June, a new platform for ‘Personal Care’ (of representatives of patients, family, staff and caregivers) called for an increase in funding: the basic funding of 800 euros should be increased to an average of 1,450 euros with earmarked resources. said at the time. There should be a “fairness bonus” if the person concerned commits to paying minimum fees to caregivers.
Ribo stressed that the federal government had first increased the subsidy from 500 to 640 and now to 800 euros. “I also understand when you say that it is still not enough – of course we need much, much more,” because even a “super-big minister” cannot make up for everything that has not been done in 30 years, Ribo said Health Minister Johannes Rauch about the reforms in the healthcare sector, such as increasing the healthcare fund to 1.1 billion euros.
Training offensive a success
She agrees that more needs to be done, Ribo says, but overall a broader view was needed, “because we don’t just have the six percent with 24-hour care,” she said, referring to the caring family members for whom the care bonus was introduced.
She also said of the training offensive: “Our goal was to really support ourselves with training grants,” she said. In less than a year, 9,000 people fell into the nursing grant system and started training. This means that “a big package has been achieved.”
Source: Krone
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