Persian-speaking Care services

Care services for Persian-speaking families in Germany: the people who come in to help look after an elderly parent, or someone ill at home. In many Persian-speaking families that decision never gets made, because it was never in question: a parent stays at home, and the children do the work. What families often do not learn for years is that German care insurance supports exactly that arrangement, and not only by sending an agency in: it can pay a cash contribution to the family, because the family is providing the care. Of everything this directory points people towards, this is the entitlement that goes unused most.

In an emergency, or if there is a risk to life, call 112. Outside surgery hours the medical on-call service answers on 116 117, and it can also help you find an appointment. This page is only a directory and is not an emergency service.

What the Verified badge does and does not say

Verified says one thing only: a real person stands behind this profile and manages it themselves. YabInfy does not check anyone's certificates, licences, experience or competence, and the badge is not for sale. One independent check you can make here: a service that wants to bill the care insurance funds has to hold a supply contract (Versorgungsvertrag) with them, and your own fund can tell you which services do.

Who is on this list

This category has no sub-categories, so two businesses sitting next to each other here can do very different work: a full nursing service with qualified staff, help with the housework and with getting out of the flat, or something in between. Your first question is the plain one: what do you actually do, and what do you not do. The city list at the bottom of this page matters more here than in almost any other category, because somebody has to reach your front door several times a day.

The care level is the gate

Everything the insurance pays for runs through one thing: a care level (Pflegegrad) assessed for that person. You apply to the care insurance fund (Pflegekasse), which sits with their health insurer, an assessor visits the home, and the level that comes back decides what is available.

• Applying is free and usually needs no particular form: a phone call or a short letter registers it, and the fund sends the paperwork.
• The person can apply themselves, and so can a relative holding a power of attorney or written authority.
• Support is counted from the month the application was registered, not from the day of the assessment. The weeks spent waiting for the visit are not lost, which is why applying early is worth money.
• Conditions and details come from your own care insurance fund: it decides, not us and not the care service.

Preparing for the assessment visit

This is the most useful part of this page. The assessor comes once, stays an hour, and records what they see.

• Keep a diary for a week or two: what help is needed, how long it takes, at what time of day, and write the nights down too. "Lifting out of bed, three times a night, ten minutes" is something an assessor can work with. "She is not doing well" is not.
• Have the medication list, medical reports and any hospital discharge letter within reach.
• Have somebody there who sees the daily reality, meaning the person who does the work.
• The honest point: in our families it is normal to present the person at their best on the day. Properly dressed, yes to every question, "no, I can manage". It comes from pride and dignity and it makes complete sense, but the result is a recorded need smaller than the real one. The assessor writes what that hour showed.

The three shapes of support

Once a level is in place, support usually arrives in one of three shapes: a care service that comes in and bills the fund for its work, a cash contribution to the person when the family provides the care, and a combination of the two, the most common arrangement in practice.

Two more exist that our families ask about least: short-term care and day care, so whoever is doing the caring can breathe for a few days, and a contribution towards help around the house. Which of these your level opens is a question only the care insurance fund answers, so name all four in one call.

What a care service does, and what it does not

A care service comes for the basics of the day: washing and bathing, dressing, getting up and moving about, meals, and household tasks where that is in the agreement. What it is not is a presence around the clock. It arrives in fixed slots and leaves again, and the rest of the day and night stays with the family.

There is also a split that confuses people: treatment care at home, meaning injections, wound dressings, medication or compression stockings, is separate work that a doctor prescribes and that is paid for by a separate route, not part of basic daily care. If it is needed, ask the doctor for the prescription and tell the service. Plenty of services do both, but on paper they are two different things.

Language here is not a comfort, it is the care

In the last years of a life, and above all with dementia, the language learned last is the first one lost. Someone who worked in German for thirty years can reach the point of only understanding Persian and only speaking it. A carer who speaks it is then the only person who understands them, and the only one who can work out where the pain is. That is not a nicety, it is the care itself.

The second point is of a different kind: handing your body to a stranger, being washed, being helped to the toilet, is hard for anyone and harder with no language in common. Asking for a woman to care for a woman, or a man for a man, is not a strange request, so say so on the first call.

What to ask a service when you call

• Whether they have capacity now, and from what date. "Not at the moment" is a common answer, so call several.
• Which times of day they can cover: early morning, midday, evening, weekends.
• Whether the same few carers come each time, or somebody new each day. For a person whose memory is going, that is no small difference.
• Which of their staff actually speaks Persian, and on which shift. Sometimes it is somebody in the office and not the person who rings your bell.
• Whether they bill the care insurance fund directly, and what they charge on top of that.
• The notice period and conditions for ending the contract, if it does not work or the situation changes.
• YabInfy checks none of this, so ask for it yourself, and ask to see the document where it matters.

Choosing from this list

Reviews here speak to what a family sees every day: whether they came on time, whether anyone rang when they were late, whether it was the same familiar faces or a stranger each visit. They are not a verdict on nursing skill: for that, ask the service about its staff's qualifications and training. Contact details sit behind "Show contact details & address" and reach the office itself.

On privacy, both halves of it: YabInfy does not show who opened this page, whose number was revealed, or who sent a contact request. What is public is the review you write yourself, under a name you choose, so leave out details that would make a family situation recognisable.

For physiotherapy or speech therapy, see Allied health, and for prescriptions and referrals, Doctors. If you have been the carer for years and are worn down by it, Mental health has its own list. How this site works is set out in the FAQ, and if you run a care service, add your business.