COVID: Short on ICU nurses, Germany looks abroad
Amid a nursing staff shortage, German hospitals have had to take matters into their own hands. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, a new arrival from Mexico proved very valuable at Berlin s well-known Charite Hospital.
Nurse Herbert Perez works in Berlin Charite s intensive care unit
The story of German Health Minister Jens Spahn and Judith Heepe, the nursing director at Berlin s Charite Hospital, is a little like the tale of the hare and the hedgehog. Heepe, like the wily hedgehog, is somehow always faster.
In September 2019, Spahn was in Mexico signing a contract to speed up the process for Mexican nursing staff to receive work permits in Germany. Heepe had already been there. A month before that, Spahn had sent his state secretary to the Philippines on a recruitment mission. Heepe had been there, too.