A smile flashes across Anika's face as she notices Daria Kägler's blue shirt. Daria quickly crosses the schoolyard and greets Anika. The two are immediately engaged in a familiar conversation about school and family, and are making plans to go to a concert.
It is one of the regular school visits that health and pediatric nurse Daria Kägler has on her schedule for the Lübeck pediatric care service at the school. 15-year-old Anika has been bound to a wheelchair since childhood. Her paraplegia makes regular help from the care service necessary to enable her to attend afternoon classes.
For a long time, Anika's mother took on the tasks. However, coordinating this with her professional life is becoming increasingly problematic. Finding a home care service to take over Anika's care seemed almost impossible. The consequence would have been that Anika would not have been able to stay at school in the afternoons.
She reports thoughtfully: „It felt like we contacted a thousand home care services across Germany.“ Accordingly, she is happy and grateful that the new home care service can be there for her. Providing care for children, especially for relatively short periods like Anika's, is generally problematic. Many home care services struggle with young patients. Often, families don't find support starting with the legally required care consultation. The demand is high. Steffi Kalfac, the head of the children's home care service, experiences this daily: „We are also in a situation where, due to staffing shortages, we cannot meet all requests by a long shot.“ Steffi Kalfac hopes for more applicants. The approach of providing outpatient care for children and adolescents is quite new. The Lübeck Children's Home Care Service is the first of its kind in Northern Germany.
After a good 30 minutes, Daria Kägler's task is complete. The two say a warm goodbye. „At the beginning it was a bit strange,“ Anika admits, „suddenly Mom wasn't here anymore.“ But she also appreciates the freedom the home care service gives her. And she gets along particularly well with Daria Kägler: „I'm always happy when she comes. She's become almost like a second mother to me,“ she beams. Her experiences with the home care service are positive, and plans are already being made to use Anika's support to expand her freedoms and give her parents some breathing room as well.
Accordingly, both talk quite openly about Anika's typical teenage everyday life. „Math and German are rather uncool - sports, art, and music are great.“ Music plays a big role in Anika's everyday life anyway. She had already started playing the saxophone at school. So it's not surprising that there are already „conspiratorial“ plans for a „girls“" evening by Anika, her family, and the home care nurse. This is supposed to be a concert evening. Booking the tickets is currently generating a lot of anticipation in the conversations during the home care visit.
