North Rhine-Westphalia: SPD calls for wage compensation for carers

Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - According to the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia, anyone who cares for relatives should receive full wage compensation for a necessary reduction in working hours.

North Rhine-Westphalia: SPD calls for wage compensation for carers

Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - According to the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia, anyone who cares for relatives should receive full wage compensation for a necessary reduction in working hours. The opposition faction is also calling for a state program to promote short-term, day and night care places and the expansion of care hotels. In the coming week, the SPD wants to bring an application for "respectful care in NRW" to the state parliament, which the health policy spokesman for the parliamentary group, Thorsten Klute, presented on Wednesday in Düsseldorf.

The background to the initiative is the rapidly increasing need for care, he explained. From 2019 to the end of 2021 alone, the number of people in need of care in NRW had already risen by 23.5 percent to around 1.2 million. According to figures from the State Statistical Office, 86 percent of them would be cared for at home.

"The Barmer Report assumes that there will be almost three million people in need of care nationwide by 2030, who will be cared for exclusively by relatives," said Klute. "That's about 630,000 more people than in 2020." Therefore, much more places, staff, advice and help must be provided. Specially trained community nurses who advise and support seniors in home visits could also contribute to this. A corresponding model in Rhineland-Palatinate is exemplary.

"Long-term caring relatives are often threatened with loneliness, the actual exclusion from social participation," Klute warned. Therefore, the state government should use a Federal Council initiative to strengthen these "silent heroes". This also included more spa offers for caring relatives.