Only six percent of Germans would go into a nursing home of their own free will. Yet the population of care homes is growing every year. Scandalously, investors’ and proprietors’ profits grow the worse the conditions in the homes are. Not only does this industry suffer from chronic staff shortages, but it’s also a hive of criminality, with care providers, doctors and dispensing chemists engaged in widespread fraud that’s hurting taxpayers to the tune of billions. This system is nearing collapse. In this unsparing report on the nursing care industry, expert Christoph Lixenfeld argues that this broken system cannot be reformed. He maintains that Germany needs a Year Zero in its approach to nursing care and charts some viable alternatives.
