Nursing shortage: Two women from Fürstenfeldbruck are tied to the bed and alone

Created: 04/23/2022, 14:46

By: Ulrike Osman

In this room mother and daughter eke out their lives.

The daughter can't get out of bed at all, the mother hardly ever.

Nevertheless, the 86-year-old has to take care of her daughter, who can no longer help herself.

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Care emergency: This term is so present that one almost runs the risk of checking off the condition as normal.

But human destinies are almost always hidden behind them.

Fürstenfeldbruck – The front door opens automatically, as does the apartment door behind it.

Mariele W. (all names have been changed) can operate the door opener from her bed.

You enter a semi-dark hallway and look straight into a small room.

There are two beds here.

In between there is just enough space for a walker and a small table.

Nursing shortage in Fürstenfeldbruck: living space shrinks to a small room

Mariele W. and her daughter Vera are lying in the beds.

You lie here all day.

The small room has become the center of her life.

Both urgently need help.

They need outpatient care, they would even prefer to have a caregiver live with them.

But they don't find anyone.

Up until a few weeks ago everything was different.

Mariele W. was able to look after her disabled daughter herself.

But now the health problems of the 86-year-old are getting out of hand.

She has a leg ulcer, heart problems, shortness of breath, osteoporosis.

She recently had to go to the hospital.

The daughter was allowed to come along because she couldn't stay alone.

And because it wasn't easy to find a short-term care place.

She was also afraid for her mother.

"I didn't know if I would see her alive again," says Vera W. She is 58 and suffers from spastic paralysis caused by lack of oxygen at birth.

Nursing shortage in Fürstenfeldbruck: escalation after hospital stay

Shortly before Easter, the women were released from the clinic.

It was said that an outpatient nursing service would take over the care at home.

But there one waved off: lack of staff.

The care required for mother and daughter is far too high and cannot be managed with the existing staff.

As an alternative, the clinic in Fürstenfeldbruck offered to get inpatient care places – in different homes.

However, a separation was out of the question for the women in Brucker.

"It's inhuman," says Vera W. "My mother has taken care of me since I was born."

Nursing shortage in Fürstenfeldbruck: mother and daughter are slowly becoming desperate

Neither of them know how to proceed.

"We are desperate." They have no help in the neighborhood, relatives live too far away or are frail themselves.

From time to time a friend brings groceries and collects the mail.

(By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular FFB newsletter.)

She had to unsubscribe from the local newspaper, which Mariele W. had read all her life.

She no longer comes out the door to take the newspaper out of the mailbox.

Nursing shortage in Fürstenfeldbruck: sit up in bed – an unfulfillable wish

In the apartment, the 86-year-old can move around with the walker.

A few steps to the kitchen, a few steps to the bathroom.

She can still support her daughter with the essentials, but help her from the bed to the wheelchair - she can no longer do that.

Vera W. would like to sit up straight again.

But due to her paralysis, she cannot get up at all on her own.

"I've been stuck for four weeks now."

Nursing shortage in Fürstenfeldbruck: Sometimes food is scarce

The TV on the wall has become the only distraction for the two women.

"Otherwise we'd be staring at the ceiling all day." The remote control is on the narrow table by Vera W's bed.

Next to it is a bottle of juice.

Her mother fetched her from the kitchen in the basket of her walker.

She also brought a cup of yoghurt with her that evening.

It must be enough.

Who knows when the acquaintance will bring food next time.

"We are urgently looking for round-the-clock care," say the two women.

Her house has an apartment that is currently being renovated.

A nurse could move in there – if only one could be found.