Solution found for long-term problem: medical students in North Rhine-Westphalia should work in prison

Created: 12/13/2022, 5:55 p.m

By: Maximilian Gang

Emergency button on the prison doctor's desk: numerous doctors are missing from the prisons in North Rhine-Westphalia (archive image).

© Bodo Marks/dpa

Correctional facilities in North Rhine-Westphalia are urgently looking for prison doctors.

Now medical students are supposed to help out – and benefit from it themselves.

Cologne – The lack of skilled workers is currently noticeable in many areas.

Whether it's craftsmen, nursing staff or teachers - there is a lack of trained employees everywhere.

There are also too few doctors.

According to the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB), there is currently a shortage of around 15,000 doctors in Germany.

This is also noticeable in the prisons in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Medical students at the University of Witten/Herdecke are now supposed to work in prison for a while during their studies.

Both the institutions and the prospective physicians should benefit from this.

Doctors should work in NRW prisons: "Very interesting from a professional point of view"

The Ministry of Justice in North Rhine-Westphalia concluded a corresponding cooperation agreement with the university on Monday, December 12, reports 24RHEIN.

In this way, the students should be won over to prison medicine for their time after their studies: "In the future, we want to inspire prospective doctors to take part in the exciting and varied work in prisons while they are still studying," says NRW Minister of Justice Benjamin Limbach.

correctional facilities in North Rhine-Westphalia

There are currently 36 prisons in North Rhine-Westphalia, with a total of around 18,900 places (as of 2020).

More than three quarters of the places are in closed prisons.

And the prisons are very busy: on average, around 16,000 places are occupied (occupancy rate: around 85 percent).

The gender distribution in the prisons in North Rhine-Westphalia is clear: more than 90 percent of the places are reserved for men.

Only six percent of the inmates are women.

If you look at the detention places, the JVA Bielefeld-Senne is the largest detention center in North Rhine-Westphalia and also in Germany.

It has around 1,600 places in two buildings and 15 branch offices.

Of the open prisons, the Bielefeld JVA is even the largest in Europe.

The work as a prison doctor is - due to the diverse medical problems - from a "professional point of view very interesting", as Limbach explains.

The necessary close cooperation with other specialist services and appointment to the public service are also attractive job details.

However, there is a lack of qualified personnel.

Cooperation should solve a long-lasting problem in NRW

According to the ministry, a problem in medical university education that has existed for a long time is partly responsible for this: So far, there have been no points of contact with prison medicine in medical studies and also in further training within the German Medical Association.

Therefore, according to the ministry, little consideration is given to the path to employment as a prison doctor after graduation.

This should now be over: As part of the cooperation, prison medicine is to be established in the human medicine curriculum at the University of Witten/Herdecke.

And that means: lectures at the university, and also internships in the medical field of the prisons and the prison hospital in North Rhine-Westphalia in Fröndenberg/Ruhr.

The first lecture on institutional medicine has already been held

Previously, some students would have had the opportunity to get to know healthcare in a prison in practice, but: "The cooperation with the Ministry of Justice will enable all our prospective medical doctors to get to know the important field of prison medicine and thus also new ones to open up career prospects,” as University President Martin Butzlaff explains.

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The starting point has already been set: the signing of the cooperation agreement was accompanied by a lecture on the basics and special features of prison medicine.

But even if this cooperation manages to mend a hole in the supply of skilled workers, there is still a lack of qualified personnel in many areas.

And it could get even worse: According to a study by the IAB, the German labor market will lose around seven million people by 2035.