Recruit qualified geriatric nurses?
Difficult, because the labor market has been swept empty.
The St. Anna Caritas nursing home in Holzkirchen therefore takes a different approach: it focuses on the existing employees – and their health.
Holzkirchen
– Helping the elderly to get up, turning the bedridden over, saying goodbye to the dying who have become familiar: working as a geriatric nurse is mentally and physically stressful. To ensure that employees are not absent due to illness or even resigning due to the stress, Caritas strives to keep its scarce staff healthy and satisfied - and to retain them in the long term with good working conditions.
To this end, she has now launched the "Mobility and Ergonomics Coaching" project. As part of this, the St. Anna retirement home on Holzkirchner Hospital Street will be hiring a physiotherapist from February. Although this is also responsible for promoting the mobility of the residents of the home, it also acts as a coach for the nursing staff, explains Cornelia Müller, head of the home.
The physiotherapist observed how they worked and whether they put any one-sided strain on their backs.
She gives tips on how to improve the way of working from a physiotherapeutic point of view and practices this together with nurses and residents.
"The idea is to have a prophylactic effect, constantly, and not just once a year with further training," explains Müller.
"It is a huge gain when the residents are instructed on how to get up correctly, for example, and when the employees know how to help properly," says Müller.
Employee recruitment fails due to affordable housing
Because the illness of an employee also has consequences for his colleagues - and their job satisfaction: "I then have to ask someone to stand in for him to maintain the care of the residents," explains Müller. "However, the employees want to be able to rely on the fact that they really have free days off." Understandably, they wanted to have time for leisure activities and, above all, for their families. Especially since they already have to work in three shifts, on weekends and on public holidays. "If there were more employees, many things would be easier and I would be less concerned about recruiting motivated nursing staff for elderly care," says Müller. Frequent having to step in to maintain care for the elderly or sick is one of the reasons why nursing professions are considered unattractive.
Another problem in finding staff is the shortage of affordable housing in Holzkirchen. "We've had applicants from Berlin who couldn't start their job because they couldn't find an affordable apartment," says Müller. Although St. Anna has staff apartments, they are already occupied. Finally, Caritas also recruits personnel on the international job market. Three employees from the Philippines have been working in Holzkirchen since 2020. Müller has had good experiences with them: "They are very motivated, act in a resident-oriented and empathetic manner."
However, not all jobs can be filled with employees from abroad.
"The shortage of skilled workers is dramatic," says Müller.
That's why St. Anna can't always allocate all 125 care places.
"For a short time we were only able to fill 90 percent," says Müller.
This happens, for example, when long-term employees retire.
"Then finding someone at short notice is currently impossible."
However, the fact that four care places currently have to remain free is due to the pandemic: St. Anna needs the option of being able to quarantine residents if necessary.
In addition, the staff, who sometimes have to work with protective equipment due to the pandemic, should be relieved.
Like many other facilities in the district, St. Anna is also looking for qualified nursing staff.
To bridge the gap, Caritas uses specialists from temporary employment agencies.
"We make sure that these employees are used as continuously as possible, since geriatric care is relationship work and with many changes it is difficult to create a relationship between specialists and the person to be cared for."
