News from Germany

[salin]

As a counterbalance, it seems that the state German health insurance posted on Instagram for ME/CFS day about the magical wonders of psychobehavioral therapies. Some have been removed following complaints, though not all.

Fortunately, there isn’t just *one* state health insurance provider in Germany, but 93.
Taken together, the AOKs have the largest membership.
They are also independent of the state and are therefore referred to as statutory health insurance providers.

Still, it’s utterly and incomprehensibly stupid.
I suspect the AOK wants to be able to offload its sick pay recipients onto the pension fund more quickly, but who knows?

 

[Chandelier]

ME/CFS: „Ich bin nicht erschöpft – ich bin schwer krank“

ME/CFS ist eine chronische Krankheit, die den Betroffenen alles nimmt, was das Leben lebenswert macht. Wer am meisten darunter leidet, warum sie so wenig verstanden und erforscht ist und was den Betroffenen helfen würde. Eine Reportage

www.freitag.de

(Paywalled)

ME/CFS: "I'm not exhausted — I'm seriously ill"
ME/CFS is a chronic illness that robs those affected of everything that makes life worth living. Who suffers most from it, why it is so little understood and researched, and what would help those affected.
A report by Elena Jaekel

I‘m surprised to see an article about ME/CFS in Der Freitag.
I remember a video clip from a few years ago where the publisher Jakob Augstein was laughing about the notion of Long Covid.

Maybe that’s a positive sign that things are slowly changing.

 

[Yann04]

There’s an exposition at the Berlin History of Medicine Museum “Horizontal: The sickbed and the world from the laying down position”. I think it opened two days ago?

Post (in german)

Presumably since it’s made a buzz in germanophone ME/CFS circles it atleast partially covers ME/CFS.

 

[Chandelier]

There’s an exposition at the Berlin History of Medicine Museum “Horizontal: The sickbed and the world from the laying down position”. I think it opened two days ago?

Post (in german)

Presumably since it’s made a buzz in germanophone ME/CFS circles it atleast partially covers ME/CFS.

There’s a livestream starting at 19:00 GMT+1:

For anyone interested who cannot attend the opening, we are offering a live stream (in German) with a digital tour of the special exhibition.

On May 28, we invite you to the opening of the new special exhibition “Horizontal – Politics and Poetics from the Sickbed”

The exhibition explores how perception and our relationship to the world change when the bed becomes the center of one’s life. Through historical objects and archival materials, artistic works, activist perspectives, and the voices of those affected, a multifaceted picture emerges in the exhibition spaces, presenting the hospital bed not only as a site of medical intervention but as a space where fundamental questions of our present converge—questions of participation, care, solidarity, and the conditions for rest in an exhausted society.