10 December 2003 | The Jenny De la Torre Foundation takes stock on its first anniversary

Medical help and long-term care for the homeless must continue to increase

On 10 December 2003, the Jenny De la Torre Foundation celebrated its first birthday with a festive event at the Association of Eastern German Savings and Giro Banks, Ostdeutscher Sparkassen und Giroverband (OSGV) in Berlin. Over 100 guests attended, including many doctors, politicians and health representatives, the German Senator for Health, Ms. Heidi Knake-Werner, as well as friends and sponsors. They were treated to a lively review of the year′s events. The charitable foundation, active in its present form since 2002, had its beginnings in the mid-1990s with the successful medical and social care of homeless people in Berlin.

The history of Berlin′s doctor’s practice for the homeless, the first medical institution of its kind worldwide, began in 1994 at the city’s Ostbahnhof railway station. Since then, the Peruvian physician Jenny De la Torre Castro, a resident of Berlin since 1982, has treated a total of 5,000 poor and homeless people between the ages of 12 and 84. Many of her patients, for whom she provides free treatment, later managed to establish an independent life. They have found a place to live, employment and a life away from the streets.

This highly frequented institution was maintained by a non-profit organisation of the Berlin Medical Association, MUT-Gesellschaft für Gesundheit mbH. But after ongoing fears concerning its preservation, the Foundation′s chairwoman and doctor to the homeless Jenny De la Torre took a decisive step in 2003 that would have a lasting influence on the Foundation′s future. She terminated her contract with MUT in the interest of her patients when the company announced their intention to cut the practice′s working hours from 40 to 25 hours a week.

Jenny De la Torre told those present at the anniversary celebration that the Foundation′s next goal is to establish an independently-supported health centre for the homeless. “We want to work with politicians, but intend to avoid facing government cuts,“ she said. That is the only way that sufficient medical care for poor and homeless people can be ensured. In view of massive government cutbacks in social support and widespread unemployment due to lack of job opportunities, a large increase in the number of homeless people is to be expected. The unofficial estimate of people living on the streets of Berlin is already over 10,000, with an increasing number of young people and women among those in need of help.

The doctor explained that a health centre for the homeless needed to be able to fulfil specific requirements that would distinguish it from other medical practices. Besides a knowledge of the particular ways that diseases manifest themselves in homeless people, it is necessary, for example, to know the infrastructure of institutions where they can receive further help and those institutions′ bureaucratic requirements.

De la Torre emphasised the necessity for quick, anonymous and unbureaucratic treatment without long waiting-times that accommodates homeless patients. Furthermore, the health centre should provide social and psychological counselling for those who need it, and give as many people as possible the opportunity to be actively involved as volunteers. The centre must strive to give the kind of help that brings hope and concrete change, as is already being done at the practice on Stralauer Platz. Prospective doctors, nurses and doctor′s aids are trained there, and the practice can present itself throughout Europe as a model for the medical care of the homeless. Delegations from Belgium, Finland and Denmark, as well as other European countries have returned home with the knowledge and experience they have gained there.

The Foundation′s plans for 2004 include searching for a suitable property for the establishment of a health centre and raising further funds to support the project. Appeals to the residents of Berlin and the medical profession for donations should help the Foundation find permanent sponsors to ensure that the work for homeless people can continue in the long-term.

The Foundation hopes that many private individuals, as well as national and international institutions and businesses will offer concrete support for the project, for instance by supplying clothing for homeless visitors to the centre. But such offers can only be accepted once the Foundation has found a building with the appropriate space and infrastructure for an establishment for the homeless. 

Dr. De la Torre expressed special gratitude to OSGV and the Association of German Foundations, but also thanked all others present for their help. She reported happily that the Foundation has already won many friends and sponsors within the first year of its existence, and has in addition gained two new members on the board. She introduced Ms. Kerstin Siebert, one of the nurses working at the Ostbahnhof practice for the homeless, and Mr. Erik Hildenbrand, who will take on the role of managing director of the Foundation in future.

The singer Dagmar Frederic, patroness of “Undine”, a housing project for the homeless, and the managing director of OSGV, Rainer Voigt, presented the Foundation with a donation. Berlin’s Senator for Health, Ms. Heidi Knake-Werner, Dr. Christoph Mecking, managing director of the Association of German Foundations, and Mr. Lorenz Postler, the councillor for business, finance and services for the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district thanked the Jenny De la Torre Foundation for the work it does and promised to continue to support it in the future.