Migrants in the German healthcare system
Conference at Hannover Medical School September 2-3, 2011
The number of physicians, nursing staff and patients with a migration background is constantly increasing. Can migrants help to alleviate the feared shortage of specialists in healthcare in Germany? What is the current situation and what needs to be done to make better use of existing skills? How are migrants for their part cared for by the German healthcare system? What demands do they have on care and where do we need to start in order to improve care and the use of preventative services? These questions will be explored over two days by scientists from medicine and other disciplines at the MHH. A particular focus will be on the cross-sectional category of gender, as women and men are affected by migration as well as health and illness in different ways, and they often have different roles as actors in the healthcare system or perform their roles in different ways.
Opportunity or challenge? Diversity in medicine
Lecture series on the 10th anniversary of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) 2016
The General Equal Treatment Act has been in force in Germany for 10 years. It
is intended to protect against discrimination on the grounds of ascribed race or ethnic origin,
gender or sexual identity, religion or
ideology, disability or age. But
you will search in vain for the word "discrimination" in the legal text. What protection
does it nevertheless offer in working life, or is it more of a paper tiger?
Prof. Dr. Sibylle Raasch is a legal scholar specializing in
public law and legal gender studies at the University of Hamburg.
Medicine is (was) male - is that still true today? Today, the proportion of
women studying medicine is 60.7%, in specialist medical training it is over
50%, the proportion of female senior physicians is 10 - 70% depending on the field, and in private practice
GPs the proportion of women is over 50%. It is therefore time
for female physicians to define the framework conditions for medical outpatient, inpatient
independent and salaried work so that we can practise our profession for a long time
and without burn-out for the benefit of our patients.
Christine Hidas is Head of the Dialysis Access Center at Darmstadt Hospital
and Chairwoman of the Frankfurt regional group of the German Medical Women's Association (Deutscher Ärztinnenbund e.V.).
When dealing with gender irritations, the central question is:
What is the connection between body and psychological experience
and behavior and when can/must/should treatment be given to either the
body, the psyche or both? It must therefore be considered
when to speak of a male or female body,
when to speak of a male or female gender experience or
gender role behavior and whether all these cases are or should be binary
concepts.
Prof. Dr. Herta Richter-Appelt is a sexologist at the
University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, action plans and statutory
prohibitions on discrimination require universities and the
healthcare system to make appropriate provisions and accessibility for
disabled people. These will be presented and discussed.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Felix Welti is Professor of Social and Health Law,
Rehabilitation and Disability Law at the University of Kassel.
Gender differences are also becoming increasingly evident in geriatric medicine
, some of which have already been implemented in guidelines. Practically
relevant, also in the sense of avoiding undesirable side effects,
are above all differences in the effect of cardiovascular drugs.
Differences in the ageing process have consequences for diagnostic and
therapeutic algorithms.
Prof. Dr. Ursula Müller-Werdan is Professor of Geriatrics at
Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Medical Director of the Evangelisches
Geriatriezentrum in Berlin.
Universities and Studentenwerk Hannover are increasingly offering counseling and
support services for diverse student groups in order to increase
equal opportunities. Which student groups can
be identified? What special needs do they have? Which services
are helpful for them?
Linda Wilken is Head of the Social and International Affairs Department at
Studentenwerk Hannover.
The proportion of people with a migration background in
Germany is just under 20%. Since the agreements on the recruitment of so-called
labor migrants ("guest workers") in the 1960s, a great deal of time
has passed.
It could therefore be assumed that the
healthcare system is aware of the special nature of medical and nursing care for people of other origins and that it can be assumed that
care is equally good.
In practice, however, it is easy to see that there are still considerable barriers to accessing the healthcare system for migrants,
which make it difficult to provide equally good medical and nursing care.
The group of people with a migrant background is very heterogeneous.
In particular,
older migrants, refugees, young children, illegalized persons and
pregnant women sometimes have special needs for medical and nursing
support and advice that are not (or cannot be) adequately provided by the current healthcare system. For some years now, there have been calls
for cultural sensitivity in medicine. However, whether this is implemented in practice
must be critically questioned.
Elisabeth Wesselman works in the Psychological and Psycho-Oncological
Service at Schwabing Hospital, Städtisches Klinikum München GmbH