KHN correspondent Shefali Luthra reported this story from Germany as a 2019 Arthur F. Burns Fellow.
HAMBURG, Germany — Researchers all over the world hail Germany for its sturdy health care system: common protection, plentiful main care, low drug costs and minimal out-of-pocket prices for residents.
Unlike within the U.S., the prospect of a big medical invoice doesn’t stand in the best way of anybody’s remedy. “Money is a problem in [their lives], but not with us,” mentioned Merangis Qadiri, a well being counselor at a clinic in certainly one of Hamburg’s poorest neighborhoods.
But it seems that tending to the well being wants of low-income sufferers nonetheless presents common challenges.
As an American well being care reporter touring via Germany, I wished to be taught not solely what works, but additionally the place the system falls quick. So once I arrived right here — in one of many nation’s wealthiest cities, with certainly one of its largest concentrations of medical doctors — economists and researchers directed me to 2 of the poorest neighborhoods: Veddel and Billstedt, each residence to excessive populations of latest immigrants.
Entering these areas felt like moving into one other metropolis, the place regardless that individuals have common insurance coverage, excessive charges of continual diseases reminiscent of diabetes, despair and coronary heart illness persist. Treatment and preventive care are troublesome to entry.
Poliklinik Veddel is a well being heart in a poorer neighborhood of Hamburg the place life expectancy is estimated to path that in Hamburg’s wealthier neighborhoods by 13 years.
The challenges confronted at each outposts ― Poliklinik Veddel and Gesundheit für Billstedt/Horn (actually, “Health for Billstedt and Horn”) ― underscored some extent: Universal well being care, in and of itself, could also be a primary step, however it isn’t a magical resolution.
Life expectancy in these areas is estimated to path that in Hamburg’s wealthier neighborhoods by 13 years ― about equal to the gap between Piedmont, a very rich California suburb, and neighboring West Oakland. In Hamburg, the distinction persists regardless that residents by no means skip out on medical doctors’ visits or treatment due to price.
Medical care is barely a part of the equation. An array of different components ― identified collectively because the “social determinants of health” ― issue strongly into these populations’ well-being. They embody big-picture gadgets like reasonably priced wholesome meals and protected areas to train in addition to small ones, like having the money and time to get to the physician.
In Germany, as within the U.S., these are exceptionally troublesome to deal with.
Poliklinik is simply off the autobahn throughout from the harbor and previous industrial warehouses. Outside are posters for anti-racism rallies. (Shefali Luthra/KHN)
Poliklinik’s workers tries to deal with social components that have an effect on sufferers’ well being, reminiscent of discovering employment.(Shefali Luthra/KHN)
In its three years of operation, Gesundheit für Billstedt/Horn has been visited by about three,500 sufferers — three% of the inhabitants within the two neighborhoods it serves. And possibly half of the individuals who come for a primary go to return for a follow-up, mentioned Qadiri, who works at Billstedt/Horn.
For one factor, many don’t know the well being outpost exists. For one other, individuals may not really feel they’ll spare the time from chaotic lives.
To handle that drawback, the Billstedt website, with its affected person rooms up entrance and a big assembly house within the again, is located in a bustling mall amongst retailers that embody an Afghan bakery, Turkish restaurant and McDonald’s. The outpost doesn’t have medical doctors onsite, however it employs well being counselors, who provide recommendation on wholesome dwelling and steering on how sufferers can handle continual circumstances, and talk with sufferers’ physicians as wanted.
The Poliklinik, situated in a separate neighborhood often known as Veddel, makes use of social and group occasions to get sufferers within the door. The clinic organizes coffees, exhibits up at native church occasions and holds native film nights. The technique seems to work, a minimum of considerably: By 11 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, the brightly adorned ready room was crammed with sufferers, ready to see a health care provider or different well being skilled.
Still, Poliklinik sees solely about 850 distinctive sufferers each three months, far wanting the realm’s 5,000 residents, mentioned Dr. Phillip Dickel, a basic practitioner on the clinic.
Another restrict on the clinic’s means to satisfy want: a scarcity of medical doctors keen to work on this a part of city. That contains basic practitioners, to say nothing of gynecologists, psychological well being specialists and pediatricians ― few of whom observe within the space, he added. In principle, one may take public transit to a different a part of the town to search out such a health care provider, however that includes money and time for the commute.
Inside Poliklinik Veddel are indicators explaining wholesome consuming but additionally promoting native film nights.
Meanwhile, the environmental issues that plague these areas are in some methods extra intractable, mentioned Dickel.
Poliklinik’s neighborhood, for example, is simply off the autobahn and crammed with previous industrial warehouses and factories.
That creates decrease air high quality and better dangers of bronchial asthma and lung illnesses, mentioned Dickel. Patients in all these neighborhoods confront housing shortages, so households turn out to be overcrowded in small flats. Aside from the psychological toll, diseases and infections ― influenza, a chilly or one thing extra critical ― unfold rapidly.
While the clinics advocate for improved housing, generally the very best the staffers on the clinics can do is give recommendation on the best way to reduce these dangers.
Qadiri, the Gesundheit well being counselor, tries to assist sufferers with diabetes and coronary heart illness discover and incorporate vegatables and fruits of their diets and teaches them methods to switch sugary drinks. And she encourages them to attend onsite train courses.
But wholesome meals is more durable to search out within the areas these clinics serve than in certainly one of Hamburg’s wealthier neighborhoods. And contemporary produce prices greater than quick meals.
“People can get care in Germany if they need it,” mentioned Dickel. “Much more important [than access], I would say, are the social conditions. That’s the cause of the life-expectancy gap.”
The Arthur F. Burns Fellowship is an trade program for German, American and Canadian journalists operated by the International Center for Journalists and the Internationale Journalisten-Programme.
