Solution for the nursing shortage?
German prostitutes to retrain as nurses for elderlyBy Kate Connolly in Berlin(Filed: 14/03/2006)
Prostitutes in Germany are being given the chance to retrain as geriatric nurses with the help of the Church and EU funding.
The scheme will help plug a chronic shortfall in nurses as well as offering an alternative to prostitutes who find themselves in an overcrowded and increasingly dangerous trade.
About 30 prostitutes between the ages of 20 and 40 are to take up a two-year training course for auxiliary nurses in the western state of North Rhine Westphalia.
The trainees include Angelika, who is in her late 30s and worked in Bochum as "Angie" for six years. She has cut her hair short, dyed it brown and said she has found the transition from selling sex to caring for old people very smooth.
"I'm feeling good," she said. Rita Kühn, of the protestant church's welfare programme in North Rhine Westphalia, which is spearheading the project, says of the former prostitutes: "They are in general very good at dealing with people, in addition to which they don't get squeamish and have absolutely no fear about touching or being touched."
Well, why not? The two professions aren't all that far apart anyway.
Prostitutes in Germany are being given the chance to retrain as geriatric nurses with the help of the Church and EU funding.
The scheme will help plug a chronic shortfall in nurses as well as offering an alternative to prostitutes who find themselves in an overcrowded and increasingly dangerous trade.
About 30 prostitutes between the ages of 20 and 40 are to take up a two-year training course for auxiliary nurses in the western state of North Rhine Westphalia.
The trainees include Angelika, who is in her late 30s and worked in Bochum as "Angie" for six years. She has cut her hair short, dyed it brown and said she has found the transition from selling sex to caring for old people very smooth.
"I'm feeling good," she said. Rita Kühn, of the protestant church's welfare programme in North Rhine Westphalia, which is spearheading the project, says of the former prostitutes: "They are in general very good at dealing with people, in addition to which they don't get squeamish and have absolutely no fear about touching or being touched."
Well, why not? The two professions aren't all that far apart anyway.
posted by Roger Coss at 7:40 AM
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