Germany may provide the opportunity for legal work to foreign caregivers for the elderly and sick.
Last week, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group began discussing a draft law prepared by 'black' deputies on reforming the current system of care for the elderly. The main idea of the document: creating a framework for legalizing foreign caregivers working in the country 'under the table'.
As noted in the CDU/CSU group, this document with the complex title 'A Human Approach, Needs-Oriented and Future-Focused' is intended to be the ruling parties' response to Germany's demographic development, primarily the increase in the number of elderly people in the country. Indeed, at the end of last year, almost one and a half million residents of the country regularly received medical care at home or needed constant supervision.
However, the German labor market was simply unable to meet this demand. It is unlikely that this situation will fundamentally change even after May 1, when Eastern Europeans from the new EU countries will be able to work in Germany without any restrictions.
By proposing to legalize foreign caregivers, the CDU/CSU members intend to follow a similar path to their neighbors in the Alpine republic. In Austria, for several years, it has been allowed to hire auxiliary medical personnel from non-EU countries to care for the seriously ill in families.
For a foreign caregiver to legally work in Germany, at least three conditions must be met. The employer, that is, the specific German family, must pay for the work at the level of 800-1000 euros, provide the caregiver with a separate room, and free meals. Social payments for the worker must be taken over by the German long-term care insurance fund (Pflegekasse).
Commenting on the conservatives' proposals, the parliamentary opposition expresses serious doubts about the implementation of this idea, calling it a 'lightweight and cheap solution'. For example, Green Party deputy Elisabeth Scharfenberg expressed concerns about the sufficient qualifications of foreign medical personnel and noted the need for 'professional support' of this work by German nursing services.
The CDU group's health expert Jens Spahn, in response to criticism, said that the discussion must be precisely about 'care for the infirm, not medical care, which remains the responsibility of doctors'. However, according to experts, it is quite difficult to draw a clear line between these two types of work.
Most likely, Angela Merkel's 'black-yellow' government will officially approve the bill before the summer parliamentary recess: there are no particular objections to these plans within the coalition yet. Moreover, the German Federal Ministry of Health, headed by Free Democrat Philipp Rösler, has already confirmed that many of the conservatives' proposals coincide with the ideas of the German liberals.
Vladimir GUSHCHIN. 