When Aferdita Suka talks about her political heart issue, you can hardly stop her. It just gushes out of her. The focus of the Green politician is care policy. An area whose importance has long been recognized by society due to the corona pandemic, but in which things don’t really seem to be progressing – despite all the good declarations of intent. The keywords: nursing shortage, nursing staff shortage, appropriate payment.
Politicians who have committed themselves to this topic need staying power and a lot of stamina. There is no such thing as quick success. Suka has now been involved in this area at state level for a year and a half, familiarized with the problem and made contacts. But now she was politically slowed down.
In the election on February 12, she lost the direct mandate in Tempelhof, which she won in 2021 as the first Greens after former Governing Mayor Michael Müller had been successful there for 20 years for the Social Democrats. Now the CDU politician Frank Luhmann won. It is rather unlikely that Suka will move back into the House of Representatives during the current legislative period via a place on the Green candidate list.
We cannot afford to lose even one nurse.
Aferdita Suka
“I don’t really see the whole thing as a farewell,” says Suka. “It’s now a longer break, which I think is a pity.” But in a good two years the election campaign for the 2026 election will start again, and she has resolved to run again. “I worked at a fast pace for a year and a half,” she says. She networked a lot and these connections stayed.
The subject was not new to her. For ten years she had previously made politics in the district assembly – here too with a focus on care and health. Here, too, the 42-year-old has repeatedly argued and debated for the cause.
In 2021, Aferdita Suka negotiated the coalition agreement on the care sector
Her expertise was valued within the party. As a newcomer to parliament, she was able to negotiate care for the Greens in the coalition agreement between Red-Green-Red after the 2021 election. It was important to her that the establishment of a complaints office and the appointment of a state officer for care had been accepted. She was quickly confronted with many problems: for example, with an open letter from the nursing students, which pointed out the immensely high number of dropouts.
“We can’t afford to lose even one nurse,” says Suka. One problem was that there was no adequate remuneration for the extensive practical parts during the course. There is already a success to record there; two million euros were made available in a budget resolution. Another topic was the initiative to exempt training for therapy professions from school fees.
Suka can still name many areas in which there is a great need for action: relief for caregivers or short-term accommodation for children. “The situation there is dramatic. There aren’t any. The parents are left alone.” There is also an undersupply in this area among adults. Other fields are the establishment of a nursing chamber, prevention in inpatient care or the expansion of outpatient care.
She wants to continue working on the topics even without a mandate. But first she wants to use the unexpected break for the family and her daughter. Because the past six months have been very demanding with the election campaign. Professionally, Suka wants who came to Germany as a refugee from Kosovo at the age of twelve, then work as a freelance court interpreter. As a member of parliament, Suka established the discussion format “Let’s talk about … in Tempelhof” in her Tempelhof constituency last year, in which various topics were addressed. She wants to continue this dialogue at longer intervals. Without a seat in the state parliament, she wants to stay on top of her issues and create publicity for them. And that seems to be more than necessary.
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