What are solidarity-based health centres?

Our solidarity health centres are:

• Places for health care

• Places for encounters

• Starting points for change in society

Our solidarity-based health centres are part of various social spaces.
Social spaces are places where people live and meet.
These are, for example, neighbourhoods or districts or even counties.
Our solidarity-based health centres are therefore located where people live.
That is important.
It makes it easy for people to come to us.
That way, people can make better use of our services.
We also want people to have a say.

The solidarity-based health centres are organised in an association.
Information about the association can be found here: LINK
What does the association want?
The solidarity health centres should be a part of the German health system.
There are already many solidarity health centres in Germany.
And more centres are being set up.

How did our concept come about?

There are many scientific ideas and models for healthcare provision.
These scientific ideas and models are part of our concept.
One of these models is called

• social determinants of health

This means: What influences people's health?

Many things can make people healthy or ill:

• Money

• the environment

• work

• ...

This means that health is much more than just medical care.

We explain this in more detail here: LINK

This is in our concept:

The solidarity-based health centres are places for health care.
But we also do community work.
Community work means:
We bring people together in social spaces.
People can work together on a project.
People can shape the social space.

And we also do research on various topics.
Above all, we carry out social space analyses.
This means that we analyse the living conditions in the city district.
How many green spaces are there?
How noisy is it in the city district and how good is the air in the city district?
Social-spatial analysis also means
We interview the people in the urban district.
We conduct door-to-door interviews and ask the participants in our programmes.

A place for health care

People with various health problems can come to us.
This is what we offer:

• general medical care

• Psychological counselling

• social counselling

• Community Health Nursing

Community health nursing is English and can be translated as follows:
Neighbourhood health nursing or community health nursing.
This means:
There are special carers in every part of the city or community.
These nurses help with

• Counselling and examination of patients

• Preventive healthcare and education

• Orientation in the healthcare system

We say: good health requires more than general medical care.

• It also requires good mental health.

• It also requires a good social environment in which I can live a healthy life.

• I need good social conditions so that I can live a healthy life.

Employees with different professions work in the solidarity health centres.
These employees all work well together.
That is important.
When people come for counselling, they often have several problems.
If the employees have different professions, several problems can be solved in one centre.

A place for encounters and change

What influences my health?
I can take care to live a healthy life myself.
But where I live and how I live also has an impact on my health.
I often can't change that myself.
The environment also has an impact on my health.
There are many influencing factors that I cannot change on my own.
We explain these influencing factors in more detail here: LINK

We need a strong community if we want to change these factors.
This should be possible with the solidarity health centres.
There are offers that:

• Create community

• Promote participation

• Promote co-determination

Health issues can be dealt with together.
This is how changes can be initiated.

Place in the social space

Our solidarity-based health centres are part of social spaces.
Social spaces are places where people live, work and meet.
These are, for example, neighbourhoods or districts or even counties.
These social spaces are different.
They differ in terms of

• their size

• the number of people who live there

• the local conditions

It is important for us that people say:
This is my part of the city, this is where I live and I want to help shape my part of the city.

We also have a basic concept.
The basic concept sets out the minimum requirements.
There are minimum requirements for

• the services offered in the solidarity-based health centres

• the professions of the employees

This means:
The solidarity-based health centres must implement this as a minimum.

We know that: There is much more to good healthcare.
This also includes, for example

• paediatric care

• gynaecological care

• care by midwives

• physio-therapeutic services

• ergo-therapeutic services

Some of these services are already available in some solidarity health centres.

That is our wish/goal:
All solidarity health centres should be able to implement the services that are needed in the social space.

Realisation of the concept

There are already many solidarity health centres.
We think that the concept works everywhere.
But there are differences in the solidarity-based health centres.

There are local differences.
This means, for example, that the conditions in Bavaria are different from those in Saxony.
Or: the conditions are different in the city than in the countryside.

That's why we always have to take this into account:

• What do the people in the social space need?

• How many people live in the social space?

• How old are the people in the social space?

• Are there already other organisations in the social space that help people?

• What is the political situation?

• What is the legal situation?

  • The legal situation can be different in the federal states or cities.
    be different in the federal states or cities.

  • Funding for social projects may also vary from state to state or city to city.

Setting up a solidarity health centre

First of all, you need motivated people.
These people want to change healthcare provision.
They are interested in solidarity-based health centres and want to implement the concept in their city.
That is a lot of work.
And not everyone can implement the full concept at the beginning.
Sometimes implementation is faster, sometimes a little slower.

What does that depend on?

• How many people are involved?

• What professions and qualifications do these people have?

• How much free time do these people have to set up the centre?

• Where do these people get the money to set up and implement the centre?

• How much money is available for setting up and realising the centre?

• What services can the people realise with the money?