Rough tone, lack of hygiene and care errors: The undercover journalists from “Team Wallraff” have again uncovered numerous abuses in privately operated nursing homes – and personally confronted the Minister of Health with the recordings. Karl Lauterbach is shocked.
Together with his undercover team, investigative journalist Günter Wallraff has uncovered shocking abuses in privately run nursing homes – and not for the first time. Rough tone, lack of hygiene and care mistakes: when will this finally change?
In the new report “Team Wallraff – now more than ever!” Günter Wallraff confronts Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) with the shocking research results. “I don’t want such facilities to exist,” was his clear statement.
Karl Lauterbach: Profit competition in nursing a “mistake”
In retrospect, Lauterbach considers the privatization of nursing homes in the mid-1990s to be a mistake: “In my view, the mistake was made back then that care was entrusted to competition, including profit competition. Looking back, I would have been right found if care had simply remained a municipal task,” said the politician in an interview with Günter Wallraff for the RTL format “Team Wallraff – Now even more!”. At the moment, however, he sees no legal way of enforcing this: “The private investors cannot simply be expropriated. That is not legally feasible.”
In particular, the development of nursing homes by corporations that are based abroad and work with very high returns is apparently causing problems for the Minister of Health: “We are actually losing control a bit there. We don’t even know exactly who owns it facilities at all? Who is making a profit with these care facilities at the moment? It is quite obvious that this is wrong,” says Lauterbach. The government now only has “that we make sure that the quality of care is the same everywhere, no matter who owns the facility.” But that is very difficult, since relatives often prefer private institutions – “because their own shares are then lower”.
Source: Stern
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