We have gathered here for a very specific reason,
because the Helios Group has come up with
the idea to transfer the bed preparation
to nursing staff.
That is something that is not possible.
And that we will not accept.
We are protesting against this today.
And what must be said right at the beginning,
that management tried to make this protest more difficult by saying
we have to get off the hospital grounds, which we do,
but at the same time shortly before the action begins people were told
that they were not allowed to leave the hospital grounds in their work clothes.
Normally they don't stop people from leaving in scrubs
because in that café over there, the people in scrubs get a coffee
and that is not penalised.
So as I said, the Group has decided
to transfer bed preparation to the ward teams.
In 2023, the transport service and catering have been dissolved.
Officially because they said they wanted to qualify people,
In fact, they were told: Do an apprenticeship or you're gone!
And in the end they were gone.
They were dismissed!
In 2023 we were told, that more staff would be recruited,
but where is this staff?
The bottom line is that all conceivable activities,
are declared as part of care in order to be able to get them refinanced.
And that is, to put it mildly, not the point of the matter.
That is the complete opposite of it.
On the one hand the low- wage sector is abolished,
and we get the tasks of the people who then
are simply coldly dismissed.
It is simply a stone-cold saving on the backs of all of us
and ultimately on the backs of the patients.
Therefore transfer of bed cleaning must be stopped!
Stop it now!
My name is Matthias Gramlich
and have been working here as a nurse for a very long time .
Currently on the cardiological monitoring ward.
We did the action today,
because the Helios Group has decided
to transfer bed cleaning to the wards.
The colleagues who previously stripped the beds,
disinfected the beds and covered them again,
won't do this anymore by the end of the year throughout the Group.
And the order for the clinics was that they have to implement this
by the end of the year.
When it was clear for management that
the state would reimburse wages of the nursing staff
working at the bedside at the end of the year,
they tried to allocate other occupational groups
on the care staff rota, even if they did in fact
not provide bedside care,
as a normal carer does on the ward.
And this includes, for example the ward secretaries,
who only do administrative activities.
They tried it for a while, also in physiotherapy,
- not anymore -,
who work with patients but don't perform nursing activity
and who are not carers either.
That's a completely different different professional group.
And then that was extended to the patient transport service,
who really only push the beds
and otherwise do have patient contact,
but do not perform careing activities.
And that also applies to those who distribute the food, i.e. the catering.
And then came the announcement,
that from 2025 on, i.e. this year, everyone who works at the bedside,
must have a qualification,
at least a 1-year training as a care assistant.
And that was the reason to say, we're doing
a 'qualification offensive', that's what they called it,
and will qualify them all.
That sounds great at first, and nobody has anything against qualification
and nobody has anything against that people,
who used worked in an outsourced company in the low-wage sector
are taken back in-house where standard wages are paid.
But the whole thing was a fake, because the colleagues,
due to old age or language barriers,
were simply unable to retrain. Some also for social reasons.
Because if you are a single parent, then you might not be
in a position to do an apprenticeship.
Or in the case of catering, that were only 75% jobs,
so you would've had to go full-time, etc.
And that was simply not taken into account.
At least here at this hospital.
And then they said:
Do the training, because your department will not be there anymore
and then you're gone. And that was conveyed very coldly,
with the effect, that the willingness was not there.
And then the people were just dismissed for operational reasons.
In catering just under 50 people
And in the transport service, where people are younger,
some have started their training.
But even there the majority didn't stay.
That was probably around 13, 14 people.
And of those, five or six started and completed their training.
We have been protesting for years
that we have a staff shortage here, that we are overstretched,
that we have too much work for too few hands
and instead of trying to improve it
the complete opposite happens: they simply keep adding new activities
that are imposed on us as ward staff.
But the austerity measures not only affect
the care itself,
but all occupational groups.
Doctors positions were cut.
In many cases you can't save on personnel anymore,
That is why they save on equipment next.
There is a so-called equipment exchange
for the devices you need from perfusors to suction devices etc,
where you then have to look for it, when you need something.
They save on laundry, on food,
and also the organisation is really terrible,
that you have to run to look for little things,
which should be self-evident.
For example there won't be any coffee cream for a month.
You'll only realise that when you you have to distribute it...
Savings are being made on work materials,
like laundry or something like that.
You constantly have to search for stuff.
When you order stuff it doesn't get delivered.
There is an overall medication shortage.
Then it simply won't be delivered and then you have to
go to other wards to get yourself antibiotic XYZ,
because it has not been delivered.
These are all things that mean additional effort
and purely at the organisational level,
as far as the management structures are concerned,
nothing is done,
so that work processes function,
which is actually their job.
But in reality it looks like this, that we as employees
on the wards among ourselves,
we show solidarity and say: "Okay, we're going to do this and this
do you have this?" - Through our informal organisation
out of necessity
we keep the clinics running and not because management does it from above.
And if you right at the start say,
that you have too few staff and that you don't even know
how you are supposed to do your work.
We have written in the call today
that every care service is like a race against time!
That's what it is.
And if you are in such a situation,
where also your normal rota no longer applies,
where you are constantly called at home:
"Can you please do the day after tomorrow, etc."
So you can already see that organisationally the hospital
doesn't work on the basis, and then to say:
"You now do two extra tasks from people who,
previously only did that, on top of your normal work."
So that's just an absolute affront and a complete ignoring
of the facts, which for us as employees
are predominant on those wards.
And that doesn't matter in the end,
because they just say: "You do it, that's it."
And that leads in turn,
that people don't continue working here.
In a metropolitan area like Munich
you get a job at any time within a week
where you don't have to do that.
Networking amongst affected staff has to start now,
we will try to get together, but it
is not that easy,
because often the initiative doesn't come from the workers themselves,
but rather from the representative bodies
and in many cases via the works councils.
But contact will have to be established,
above all with Erfurt, who already tried to resist
in a different way with a petition, but with 800
signatures, - that's a good number,
to show as well:
The problem is everywhere.
There were actions at various clinics.
In Pforzheim it fell on a strike day,
when that was very harshly discussed.
but there were also actions in Attendorn,
also something like today, in the form of an active lunch break
or petitions.
Something like that must be be taken back.
Such a thing is unacceptable, nobody understands
that people who are already stressed without end,
that they should now do something on top of that,
which has nothing to do with their original activity.
It's not that we're too fancy for anything,
not even for distributing food,
but in fact there are simply too few people there and that's why:
Something like that has to be taken back as a first step.
And the second is simply that enough people are employed here
in all occupational groups,
that people can take their break regularly.
To be able to go to the loo for example.
So it is about the most basic things,
if something was done, then we would be happy.
And on a long-term
we have to say that clinics which run as private companies,
simply do not fulfil their purpose for society.