After criticism from Bavaria
Also clinics for suspension of nursing vaccination
04/25/2022, 12:31 p.m
The criticism of the facility-related vaccination requirement is getting louder. After Bavaria’s Minister of Health questioned the current rule at the weekend, the clinics are now also complaining. Since the general obligation to vaccinate has failed, the obligation to vaccinate care should now also be put to the test.
After the failure of a general obligation to vaccinate against the corona virus, the clinics are demanding an immediate suspension of the existing obligation to vaccinate their staff. According to a statement by the German Hospital Association for a hearing in the Bundestag, the employees cannot explain why they are obliged to be vaccinated and otherwise banned from working, while the patients they care for are not affected.
Despite the shortage of nursing staff, the clinics have always supported the introduction of the facility-related compulsory vaccination – but this under the proviso that the general compulsory vaccination follows. A cross-party draft for a general obligation to vaccinate clearly failed in the Bundestag at the beginning of April. Vaccination has been compulsory for employees in facilities for groups that need special protection, such as clinics and nursing homes, since mid-March.
The Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services, which represents nursing home operators, also emphasized that facility-related and general vaccination requirements should have complemented each other in order to be effective. “With the rejection of the general obligation to vaccinate, the facility-related obligation to vaccinate must now also be put to the test,” says the statement for a hearing in the health committee this Wednesday. It is difficult to explain why employees are under legal pressure to be vaccinated when relatives and visitors can remain unvaccinated.
Scholz should find a majority solution for general vaccination
At the weekend, Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek had already questioned the obligation to vaccinate nursing professions. The federal government must “finally come up with a new push for general vaccination. Only then does it make sense to stick to the institution-related vaccination obligation,” said the CSU politician on Sunday.
According to Holetschek, Chancellor Olaf Scholz should make the implementation of general vaccination a top priority. He must sit down “as soon as possible” with the parliamentary group leaders of all democratic parties in the Bundestag and the chairman of the Prime Ministers’ Conference and find a solution that can win a majority. “Otherwise, the institution-related vaccination obligation must be suspended as soon as possible.” A unilateral vaccination obligation for employees in care is not only unfair, but also not proportionate.