Who gets a place at the Naturkinderhaus?

By Johannes Munzinger

A facility like Naturkinderhaus am Klinikum is a dream for a hospital: childcare right next door, which can be a great location advantage if you want to attract new staff in times of skilled worker shortages. But Naturkinderhaus, which opened in the summer of 2021, is a municipal facility, not a corporate daycare. Therefore, preference should not be given to clinic staff. However, the registration form, statements released by the staff and, last but not least, the hospital’s website indicate that this is exactly what is happening.

On December 10, 2022, he became a 34-year-old father from Passau, who lives near the Naturkinderhaus in Enstrasse (he wants to remain anonymous, his name is known to the editors). Early December 19th, he presented himself to the daycare center. “Of course that would be ideal,” he says in an interview with the PNP. “The facility is 500 meters away from me, it couldn’t get any better than that.”

But his hope of securing a daycare place for 2024/25 was soon dashed. “One of the employees at the daycare center immediately stopped me and said I probably wouldn’t have a chance if I wasn’t employed at the clinic.” But he still has to try it over email.

At his request, the head of the daycare center responded to him in an email received by the PNP: “You should know that we take hospital staff into account and that incubation spaces in our home are limited.”

The registration form makes the young father suspicious

The young father was really surprised when he received the registration form. Next to “First Name, Last Name (Parents)” is “Clinic Department Employee”, both parts of the information must be entered in one double field.

The 34-year-old did a search and discovered an article on the hospital’s website titled “Naturkinderhaus am Klinikum is ready”. The last paragraph literally says: “The children of the clinic staff have priority at the Naturkinderhaus.”

“But that really can’t be the case,” says an Innstrasse resident, who then researched the legal situation on the Internet, with the result: “Since it’s a municipally-run kindergarten or day-care center, it should be equally accessible.” For all citizens and the illegal allocation of places should not be used as a competitive advantage for the neighboring clinic.” However, this advantage is clearly the case.

On January 26, he wrote to Mayor Jürgen Dober. The answer came on March 27th. In it, the mayor wrote: “At Naturkinderhaus am Klinikum, many requests for space are linked to the hospital because of the location, which is why more inquiries in this regard are not surprising. However, priority cannot be derived from this in itself, especially since it It is not a corporate day-care center. In addition, it is conceptually well-established that heterogeneous intake and socio-ecological diversity should be achieved.”

“I feel, to put it plainly, I was cheated.”

“I feel like the answer fooled me, to put it in plain German,” says the 34-year-old.

The PNP sent an inquiry to the town hall and the hospital, and the mayor’s office responded. City council spokesman Michael Schmidt wrote: “The Naturkinderhaus is close to the clinic. Last but not least, this site, which belongs to the clinic, was chosen because many people who are entitled to childcare work here. With a shift system, so that as many people as possible can return to work in the clinic.”The city of Passau is open.”

If the day-care center has more registrations than available places, the selection is made “according to specific criteria such as occupation, place of residence and place of work.”

The central sentence of the response letter: “The children of the clinic staff do not have priority per se. Only within the selection criteria.”

However, this contradicts the article on the clinic’s homepage, in which staff priority is explicitly stated. When asked by the PNP again, the OB’s office wrote: “The clinic homepage will be modified accordingly.” However, the town hall did not explain how that claim could have been on the homepage.