Large gap in care places: the district wants to buy land and give it to investors

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen needs over 400 additional care places by 2028.

What can the county do to achieve this?

The district administrator and the district Greens are of different opinion.

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen

- care places are still in short supply in the region.

In order to change that, District Administrator Josef Niedermaier (Free Voters) made the following strategy strong at the latest meeting of the Committee for Social and Cultural Affairs: The district should approach the individual cities and communities and buy land there on which investors can then build nursing homes .

"If we have done this for the first time, there will be a domino effect and other municipalities will follow."

According to the district's overall concept for senior citizens, Bad Tölz-Wolfrathausen will have to create over 400 more inpatient care places by 2028 to meet the demand.

But as urgent as the problem is, the responsibilities are intricate.

In practice, it is almost exclusively private or non-profit organizations who build and operate the homes.

Ensuring that their citizens are cared for in old age is part of the public service obligation of cities and municipalities.

The district, on the other hand, formally has a “duty to cooperate” with the goal of ensuring adequate supply.

"But that doesn't mean that the district builds and operates nursing homes itself," said Niedermaier.

"Unfortunately, this is always confused in the political discussion."

Mayors have known for a year how many care places are missing in their communities

At the request of the Greens parliamentary group, however, the committee discussed for a long time how the group can meet this “obligation to cooperate”.

A demand made by the Greens, namely “information and targets for the communities”, has already been largely met, as reported by the Social Welfare Office, Thomas Bigl.

There are ongoing discussions with all cities and municipalities in which the individual situation is discussed.

Figures broken down to the individual community on the missing care places by 2028 have been available to every mayor for a year.

But there is an "agreement that these figures will not be published at community level".

Apparently it goes so far that they are not even known to Konrad Specker (Free Voters) as Heilbrunn's municipal council, as he complained at the meeting.

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Barbara Schwendner, Green District Councilor

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According to Bigl, some communities can sit back and relax relatively relaxed when it comes to care places because they are well equipped.

"You still have to stimulate a little in others." However, it is difficult to set specific targets, according to Bigl, referring to the municipalities' right to self-administration.

"The communities don't let anything be prescribed."

What Bigl flatly rejected was the Greens' proposal to continue to financially support the construction of fully inpatient care places.

This funding will expire at the end of 2020, but has not yet been used on a large scale, says Bigl.

That will certainly not change if the district ties the subsidies - as suggested by the Greens - to the creation of living space for the nursing staff.

In addition, the Free State is now holding out the prospect of much higher funding.

District Office rejects the "Festival of Care"

The idea of ​​the Greens to honor employees in the care of the elderly with a regular “Celebration of Care” also met with little approval in the district office.

Against this, Bigl says, the fact that engagement in nursing, upbringing or midwives, for example, is "visibly excluded".

CSU District Councilor Sabine Lorenz even felt it was a "wad" for the elderly care workers themselves to honor them with a party.

“They do their job professionally for money.

You could also organize a party for the hairdressers or butchers. ”Bigl's alternative proposal;

In the future, nursing homes could be increasingly proposed for the district's business award.

Barbara Schwendner (Greens) was not satisfied with the existing efforts.

“There is a lot of pressure on this topic and valuable time is wasting,” she said.

It is not enough that all communities have the problem “on their radar”, as Niedermaier had assured them.

"Because that does not automatically mean that there will be action."