Five-year-old Isabella from Karlsfeld suffers from a rare lung disease and needs around-the-clock care.
Yet the market for critical care workers has been swept empty.
Five-year-old
Isabella Pröbstle
suffers from the rare lung disease
Surfactant-C
.
Because they cannot find caregivers, the parents look after their daughter around the clock.
But that is no longer possible.
With a
provocative
campaign, father Fritz is now soliciting specialist staff.
Dachau - "If working in a clinic with Corona is too dangerous for you.
If you've been on twelve-hour shifts lately and can't anymore.
If you can no longer see any corona deaths and burn-out is lurking for you: Then contact us! ”These sentences provoke - and they should.
Fritz Pröbstle from Karlsfeld (Dachau district) is the father of a
seriously ill five-year-old
.
And he has designed leaflets that he is currently distributing in front of all the major clinics in the region.
With his provocative appeal, he wants
intensive care workers
recruit for his child.
He no longer sees any other way of getting a nurse for his five-year-old Isabella.
“We are caught in a tangle of regulations,” says the 49-year-old.
"But help," says Pröbstle, "we don't get anybody."
Little Isabella suffers from an extremely rare lung disease:
Surfactant-C
.
Round-the-clock care is prescribed by a doctor, and the health insurance company provides EUR 300,000 a year for five intensive care workers.
The problem: Especially in times of Corona, these specialists are in short supply; Isabella's parents are now taking care of them in their “living room intensive care unit”.
Fritz Pröbstle, who actually studied computer science engineering, gave up his job.
While mother Christina Pröbstle takes care of the girl during the day, the father takes on the night shift.
The household, Isabella's nine-year-old brother Kilian - everything runs alongside.
For months.
Intensive care during Corona: the parents can no longer afford 24 hours for Isabella
But now
the family's savings have been
used up.
“I have to go back to work from February, otherwise I will no longer be able to pay our rent,” says Fritz Pröbstle.
His offer to the
health insurance company
- after months of unsuccessful search for a nursing service - to take over the full-time nursing work himself and to receive a corresponding share of the 300,000 euros approved for a nursing service, was rejected: This is not possible, there is only money for professionals, the cash register announced accordingly.
But that is exactly what Pröbstle cannot understand: If he and his wife were recognized as nurses for the daughter, “no five intensive nurses would be tied” - who in turn would be missing from the corona wards in the hospitals.
However, it is not only when it comes to the question of payment that
caregiving relatives
feel
left alone.
In order to protect the life of the seriously ill child and to prevent corona infection, the family has been in quarantine at home for almost a year.
The nine-year-old Kilian has only been taught at home since March.
But the request of the Pröbstles to be included in the highest priority level for
corona vaccinations
was also rejected.
Reason: Vaccinations are only available for professional nurses;
and Isabella's disease is so rare that it has not made it onto the list of lung diseases whose patients should receive preferential vaccination.
Politicians more important than seriously ill girl?
"Nobody cares what caring relatives do"
Fritz Pröbstle is upset: “Politicians have a higher priority, but we also need them.
You can't just exclude people like us! ”The
basic problem in Germany
is therefore very clear to him:“ Nobody cares what caring relatives do, what they take on. ”That of all local state and Bundestag members he had already confronted with his problem, only one - evasively - answered, ultimately led to take matters into their own hands and start the leaflet campaign.
According to her parents, anyone who is interested in working with little Isabella can be happy: “Apart from her illness, she is a fun-loving child.
She runs, plays and can already read. "
There is
contact with the family
at the email address isabella.pro@gmx.de