Grunthal in front of Osterburg's town hall. She accepted a scholarship five years ago and is preparing for her state medical exams. Photos: Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa
Lena Grunthal is planning to become a country doctor, a rare commodity in some rural areas in Germany.
Once her training is complete, she is looking forward to working in Osterburg, a small town with a population of 9,800, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Grunthal, 24, accepted a scholarship five years ago and is preparing for her state medical exams. After that she will set up as a doctor in the town where she grew up, with the school, the town hall and the local landscape all deeply familiar to her.
Germany is suffering from a shortage of doctors, particularly in the countryside.
Osterburg is one of several towns that are rolling out the red carpet for young doctors, offering university scholarships in exchange for a commitment that the freshly qualified doctors will come back there to work.
Osterburg Mayor Nico Schulz is relieved his scheme is working out, after he started worrying about the shortage of medics several years ago.
Several of the town's doctors approached him in 2016, pointing out the high average age in the medical community and outlining who was set to retire and when.
For Schulz, it was clear that even if it isn't necessarily the mayor's job to handle medical care, he wasn't just going to leave it all up to the insurance association.
Schulze, mayor of Osterburg, came up with the idea of providing medical students with a scholarship in return for their commitment to practise in the town after completing their training.
A year later, in 2017, the city council decided in favour of a set of incentives to attract medics. They decided to help doctors to find land and housing, provide free housing for prospective doctors and to offer scholarships.
"We were pioneers with this, we are very proud of it," says Schulz.
Osterburg is one of many small rural towns struggling with demographic change, having lost a third of its population since 1989, the year that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Migration was the town's main problem for many years, though now, young families are moving to Osterburg, says Schulz.
Many are looking for peace and quiet and affordable land to build a home, though they will also need to be able to rely on local medical care, schools and daycare centres.
The town has seven general practitioners, five specialists and nine dentists, according to Schulz.
Some 20,000 to 25,000 people in the surrounding area also rely on Osterburg for their health care needs.
Meanwhile the medics are ageing, with more planning to retire in the foreseeable future.
So despite budgetary constraints, Osterburg is investing €114,000 (RM536,000) to support three young female medical students, who each get €700 (RM3,293) a month, with the town sharing the costs with the health insurance association.
Grunthal was the first scholarship holder to sign a contract for the support five years ago. She is happy to be coming home as most of her family lives there, she says.
"Osterburg is my safe space."She feels particularly at home by the Biese, a small river.
"I'm just not a big city person," she says.Her parents supported her financially while she was studying and the scholarship paid for a laptop, tablet and books.
She was also able to put some money aside and the scholarship meant she did not have to work alongside her studies but could enjoy what little free time she had.
Grunthal also applied for the scheme because she was undecided about what kind of doctor she wanted to be and while the scholarship required her to commit to a place, it didn't require her to choose a field.
She has since decided to become a family doctor, however.
Grunthal is now planning to complete part of her practical training at placement with her own general practitioner.
Looking ahead, she will have to spend another five years specialising and part of that training she plans to complete in Osterburg, too.
Few towns in Germany award scholarships. In 2010, the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KVSA) and insurer AOK started a scholarship programme but then the KVSA ran it on its own after 2014.
Right now, there are 37 scholarship holders, the KVSA says, noting it spends €315,000 (RM1.48mil) annually. So far, 80 scholarship recipients have completed their studies and are in specialist training.
Some 20 doctors who received scholarships are now working in struggling rural areas – a drop in the ocean when it comes to Germany's need for medics, however.
Meanwhile, Osterburg's mayor is still doing all that he can to bring medics to the town and recently, a young gynaecologist took over a practice after its former owner retired three years ago.
That was a relief for Schulz, as advertisements for a replacement had failed to generate a response. The town had kept the practice going by bringing in a doctor from a district nearby once a week.
Unconventional measures are required in these difficult times, says Schulz. In his view, what is really needed are more places at medical schools for prospective students. – dpa
