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Avoid social disadvantages by caring for family members
The care of relatives not only costs strength, but often takes a lot of time. Caring for a job is sometimes hardly possible for caregivers, as the people in need of care take their full time. For example, in a nursing study carried out by the Techniker Krankenkasse, three out of every ten working respondents stated that they had to reduce their working hours because of caring for family members and people in their immediate environment. Among the inactive nurses, one in nine said they had given up the profession completely due to the care work.
In order to provide the nurses with a minimum of security, people caring for a family member should receive better social security with the current care reform. For example, an automatic protection against unemployment for the caregivers is planned in the future. "This package of measures is an important step for those who are currently responsible for the lion's share of nursing care in Germany," emphasizes Dr. med. Jens Baas, Chief Executive Officer of Techniker Krankenkasse (TK). According to the Pfleger Report 2015 of DAK-Gesundheit, these are primarily women who take care of 90 percent of their care.
The caregiving of relatives is ot associated with social disadvantages for the carers. (Image: Photographee.eu/fotolia.com) Care often associated with occupational limitations
Occupational restrictions due to care are quite common and often have long-term social disadvantages. There are also physical and psychological burdens due to the care. For example, in 2015, the DAK Nursing Report stated that about 20 percent of caregivers suffer from depression and that physical complaints, such as back pain, are more common in them. With the current care reform, at least the social disadvantages caused by the care should be significantly reduced. "Those who assume responsibility in the family should not have any social disadvantages as a result," explains TK CEO Baas. It must be urgently prevented "that someone is even in need of help, because he has lost his job by the nursing activity or afterwards."
Offers for the relief of carers
According to the Techniker Krankenkasse, long-term care insurance already offers numerous benefits to relieve the caring relatives. The TC helps the insured to orient themselves in the jungle of offers, not all of which are equally known. "Good advice is the basis for an informed decision," said Baas in the TK communication. So far, in the benefits catalog of long-term care insurance, strictly speaking, only a consultation for those in need of care is planned; in future, carers will now also be legally entitled to a claim. "This new regulation corresponds to the supply reality and is one hundred percent based on the practice," said the CEO of TK on. (Fp)