CDU leader Friedrich Merz accompanied an early shift in the intensive care unit of the Hochsauerland Clinic. “Not as a politician, but as part of the nursing team,” Merz wrote on Twitter on Easter Sunday.
In doing so, he kept a promise made during Holy Week. “Thank you for this valuable experience and happy Easter to the whole team,” continued the CDU chairman. He also published pictures that show him, like the other nurses, in blue clinic work clothes.
According to a statement from the clinic, a nursing student invited Merz to an event last autumn to experience for herself what a shift in the nursing service in an intensive care unit feels like.
The CDU boss helped during the shift on Wednesday, for example with handing out bandages, moving patients and preparing and administering medication.
Merz is not the only politician who has devoted himself to other than his usual tasks around Easter. Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) completed a four-day exercise by the Bundeswehr in Lower Saxony, for which he was temporarily appointed lieutenant in the reserve. He made his participation public on Twitter and promoted the Bundeswehr.
Some cabinet colleagues from the FDP, party leader and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner, Federal Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger and Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann took this as an opportunity to also report on Twitter about their military exercises, some of which were several years ago.