Almost unaffordable

24-hour care: calls for higher funding

There are calls for an increase in funding for 24-hour care at home. For many of those affected, care at home is not affordable.

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There are renewed calls for an increase in funding for 24-hour care at home. Many of those affected could not afford care at home with the current amount and would have to move to a care home, which is more expensive and undesirable, said Thomas Blaindorfer from the "Pflegebörse" agency.

Green care spokesperson Bedrana Ribo has some sympathy for the request, but also referred to the steps taken in the care sector.

Blaindorfer would like to see the amount of funding doubled, as this would bring about a significant improvement. In the joint APA interview, Ribo also agreed with the wish for an increase, but did not want to support the doubling.

24-hour help hardly affordable
Blaindorfer, founder and managing director of "Pflegebörse", estimates that even the cheaper services can only be afforded by around ten percent of those affected. If a person in need of care moves into an inpatient facility, the pension and care allowance are also withheld, but the rest is financed by the public sector - and the costs per care place in the home are significantly higher than the costs for 24-hour care. "I would have liked to have understood better why this is the only alternative," said Blaindorfer, who also referred to existing additional subsidies in individual federal states such as Burgenland and Vorarlberg.

Assuming an average pension of 1800 euros and care level 3, in which you receive around 550 euros in care allowance plus the 800 euros subsidy for employing two self-employed care workers, you would have a disposable monthly income of 3150 euros.

In the best-case scenario, 24-hour care provided by his agency, for example, would cost around 3000 euros; in other cases, the costs could be higher, around 4000 euros. In both cases, this is usually not affordable, says Blaindorfer, as there are also other costs for housing, care, medication, etc. According to Blaindorfer, the total cost of a place in a care home would be between 5,000 and 6,000 euros.

Calls for a "fairness bonus"
Back in June, a new "personal care" platform (made up of patient, family, staff and provider representatives) called for an increase in funding: The basic funding of 800 euros should be increased by earmarked funds to an average of 1450 euros, it said at the time. There should be a "fairness bonus", for example, if the person concerned undertakes to pay minimum fees to the caregivers.

Ribo emphasized that the federal government had first increased the subsidy from 500 to 640 and now to 800 euros. "I also understand when you say that it is still not enough - of course much, much more is still needed", because even a "super minister" cannot make up for everything that has not been done in 30 years, Ribo emphasized the reforms of Health Minister Johannes Rauch in the care sector - such as the increase in the care fund to 1.1 billion euros.

Training offensive a success
She agrees that more needs to be done, Ribo said - but a broader view was necessary overall, "because we don't just have the six percent with 24-hour care". She referred, for example, to the family carers for whom the care bonus had been introduced.

She also commented on the training offensive: "Our aim was to provide real support with training grants," she said. Within less than a year, 9,000 people had fallen into the nursing scholarship system and started training. This was "a great package".