Geretsried care center Wagner founds a palliative team

Caring for terminally ill patients at home was previously reserved for teams specializing in palliative medicine.

Now the Wagner care center in Geretsried is also offering such a service - as the first in Bavaria.

Geretsried -

People are getting older and older.

This development is accompanied by the increasing importance of palliative medicine and care.

Unfortunately, not everyone is allowed to walk the last stretch of the road without illness, pain and fear.

This is exactly the subject Melanie Steffek addressed to her future boss when she applied for the job as deputy head of nursing at Geretsried's Wagner nursing center last year.

For the nursing scientist, "it was important that I could get something going in this area".

When lawmakers changed guidelines for home care for the dying this spring, that idea turned into a shoe.

"This means that home palliative care can be billed to the health insurers," says Steffek.

The 27-year-old and the management immediately set about developing this service, the so-called general outpatient palliative care.

A team has recently been ready, according to Steffek, the first of a privately run nursing service in Bavaria.

And it is already looking after its first patient.

Two specialists, Anna Kastenmüller and Pamela Menzel, work full-time at Wagner in the care of palliative patients.

Steffek, who trained as a health and nurse alongside her studies, is available "if necessary as a jumper".

It is not unlikely that she occasionally has to help out in addition to her actual tasks, because “the need is great”.

The first interested parties had already reported in the summer, and there are now well over 100. The catchment area of ​​Wagner currently includes Geretsried, Wolfratshausen, Königsdorf, Münsing, Eurasburg and Dietramszell.

For care in other places you have to inquire.

Up until now, outpatient teams specialized in palliative medicine had taken care of patients at home.

But their personnel and time capacities are limited.

At most, they were able to process a third of the cases.

Kastenmüller and Menzel, who both completed the one-year advanced training course in the field of palliative care, can, if necessary, take up to three hours a day for the individual patient; this can be settled with the cash register.

But that much is usually not necessary, says Steffek, "if the patient is stable, an hour is usually enough".

The core of home care is symptom control.

Is the patient in pain?

Is he sick?

Do fears plague him?

"We ask that," explains Steffek.

In doing so, “the greatest value is placed on the self-assessment of the patient”.

Measures to be taken, such as the administration of a medication, would be discussed with the family doctor.

The nurses are also trained in crisis intervention.

In many cases this avoids having to call the emergency doctor or even tearing the patient out of their familiar surroundings and admitting them to a clinic.

The home care for the dying includes even more, such as daily basic care, the (calming) conversation - also with the affected relatives - as well as forms of treatment such as wraps, massages and aromatherapy.

The Wagner palliative team also works closely with physiotherapists, psychotherapists and respiratory therapists, pastors and the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen hospice association in order to be able to provide holistic care to the patient.

In most cases, a specialized palliative care team is not required, but can be arranged if necessary, says the deputy head of nursing.

And what if the currently two-and-a-half-member team should soon no longer be able to meet the requests?

Steffek isn't really worried about that.

She found that caring for palliative patients “is of interest to a surprising number of young people, even though it deals with serious issues such as illness and death”.

Generating offspring here seems to be easier than in other areas of care.

info

The Wagner nursing service in Geretsried can be reached by phone on 0 81 71/90 81 90 and by email (aapv@pflegezentrale.org).

Also read: Quality of Life for the Last Weeks