The Federal President has kept his word.

As promised in March, Frank-Walter Steinmeier came to Mainz on Thursday to talk to people who had "dropped out of society" for very different reasons.

And you shouldn't shrug your shoulders when people live on the streets in a wealthy country like Germany, the head of state stated after a nearly two-hour visit to the "Medical Outpatient Clinic Without Borders".

Markus Schug

Correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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There and with a specially purchased homeless bus, patients who are without health insurance or who are in any other kind of emergency situation are cared for on behalf of and at the expense of the association Poverty and Health in Germany, which has existed for 25 years.

It's about the "poorest, weakest and most vulnerable who fall through the grate," Steinmeier summarized his impressions after listening to several life stories with many ups and downs and asking questions himself.

You have to recognize that something like this happens, although Germany actually has an efficient health system.

The Federal President's interest in and for Mainz goes back to the re-election on February 13, which the incumbent clearly won, as expected.

At that time, Steinmeier met Gerhard Trabert, a social medicine doctor from Mainz who was known as a doctor for the homeless.

As a candidate for the left, he declared that he was primarily there to draw attention to “social inequality in the country” in Berlin and nationwide.

"Of course I will not be elected and I will not become Federal President either, I already have that much sense of reality," said the 65-year-old to the FAZ before the election, which ended up being a little better than expected with 96 votes.

Mistakes in the system make life unnecessarily difficult for the homeless

The topic initiated by Trabert obviously fell on fertile ground with Steinmeier.

At a first meeting in March in Bellevue Palace, to which the busy doctor for the poor had come directly from the Polish border as co-organizer of an aid convoy, the two agreed to visit Mainz.

The Federal President was very interested, asked questions and took his time, Wolfgang Fahr confirmed to the guest after he had sat with him for a while in the homeless bus.

The eighty-nine-year-old, who was injured in a variety of ways in an eventful life and repeatedly imprisoned for vagrancy and is Trabert's oldest patient, now lives in a retirement home in Mainz.

At some point he managed with "iron will" and the help of street workers and social workers,


What was also a long struggle for Michael Schweickert.

Because the private patient, who used to work as a disc jockey as well as a light and sound technician, fell deeply at some point - and after bankruptcy was left without any insurance in the event of illness.

Also because he mistakenly thought that you could return to a statutory fund at any time with a new job, regardless of your age.

But then, at some point, he suffered from severe back pain and also had to have a new hip, according to his description.

It was only thanks to the help he received from the Poverty and Health Association that he was able to say again today: "I'm fine."

The fact that in such complicated cases even the health insurance companies often “do not provide legally compliant advice” and that employees from official bodies such as job centers often do not know well enough is one of the mistakes in the system for Trabert, which makes it unnecessarily difficult for the homeless and refugees.

The Rhineland-Palatinate health insurance clearing house, which was specially created for such situations, has a success rate of 40 percent when it comes to “bringing people back into the system”.

The association Poverty and Health, which sees itself as part of the "exemplary center for people on the fringes of society" set up in the citadel, needs 500,000 euros in donations every year in order to be able to make all its offers of help and to be able to pay the permanent employees.

According to Trabert, it would be nice to find additional living space in the city: for homeless patients who need good and safe accommodation for a while after being released from a hospital.

The overall package, which has been made available to all visitors to the Franz Adam Landvogt-Haus “without a means test” for ten years, includes not only the outpatient clinic but also a start-up project and a tea room, which is open 365 days a year in the morning and in the evening.

Only on Thursday, when the Federal President was with "our doctor",