The Union is training opposition – of all things, when it comes to compulsory vaccination, which she herself helped to decide. No wonder this goes wrong. And rarely was political calculation as transparent as it is currently with Markus Söder. This is fatal for those in need of protection.
Markus Söder certainly had the headline on Monday: After some East German district administrators, who – some applauded by opponents of vaccination – declared in January that they would not implement compulsory vaccination in care facilities due to a lack of resources, Bavaria’s Prime Minister is now the first head of government to provide nationwide coverage for his state has announced that it will proceed “most generously” with the implementation of the law, “which de facto amounts to a suspension of enforcement”.
The Bavarian justification: Difficulties in nursing homes in providing staff. In addition, Söder explained that the partial vaccination requirement is currently of no help in the omicron wave. CDU leader Friedrich Merz immediately took the opportunity to demonstrate the new partnership with the CSU that had been invoked at the party conference in January and to profile the Union as an opposition party: He called on the federal government to completely suspend the vaccination requirement that will apply from March 15th.
“Model Bavaria” does not prevail
It is true that some CDU state leaders are not quite as involved today as would be necessary to give a homogeneous picture. Neither the Saarland, nor North Rhine-Westphalia or Schleswig-Holstein want to proceed with the vaccination according to the “Bavarian model”. But the CDU board and presidium have full support for Söder’s course. “We are of the same opinion,” said Friedrich Merz.
Full support, mind you, for the announcement not to implement a law that was passed by Germany’s legislative body, the Bundestag – especially with a much broader majority than it would have needed. Because not only the traffic light parties, but also the Union faction itself voted almost completely in December for the care vaccination.
Merz is now trying to cover up this very inelegant Union maneuver – first to introduce a law in order to plead for its suspension a little later – with the declaration that the federal government is “leaving the facilities and employees alone with the consequences of this compulsory vaccination”. “. His group agreed, assuming “that the problems can be solved”.
Vulnerable are better protected
While the undeniable benefit of this obligation to vaccinate should first be emphasized, namely that in future only people who have been vaccinated will work in direct contact with people who are often very old, very ill and therefore very endangered by Corona, which has been scientifically proven to significantly improve protection for the vulnerable actually cause problems.
Experience from other countries suggests that, of course, not all employees will be convinced of the need for immunization through a job-related vaccination requirement. As a further consequence of the obligation to vaccinate – and Merz is referring to this – there will be staff who would rather give up their jobs than the right to put their own sensitivities, which contradict all medical knowledge, above the protection of their patients. Because anyone who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons does not fall under the future obligation.
If in the long run it seems to be a good thing that some people who obviously lack the empathy necessary for a nursing profession are reorienting themselves professionally, the resulting staff gap must of course be closed, and that means effort. It would now be interesting to find out how the Union actually envisaged solving this problem at the time. Should institutions start looking for staff before it is even clear how many employees they would lose from March 15th? Or did the Union even think that you could bake nurses?
Some terminations will hit an employer who is already plagued by staff shortages hard. Again, however, experiences from France, the USA or Italy give hope that considerably fewer staff will actually accept losing their jobs than was previously feared based on the number of unvaccinated people. The reasons for those who have now given notice in the run-up to compulsory vaccination are not known. Nursing has long ceased to be one of the most attractive sectors, and there have been complaints about a shortage of staff since the 1960s.
Skimpy on the Corona bonus
If the Union were actually concerned with ensuring good nursing and medical care in Germany, it would have had ample opportunity until the change of government to ensure the better working conditions that were often demanded there – less stress, more wages. The then CDU Health Minister Jens Spahn, however, left it with a corona bonus, which many nurses found stingy, and marginal improvements. As a result, many nursing staff turned their backs on their profession exhausted and resigned last year.
This justification for the Union’s 180-degree swing is therefore flimsy and just as unconvincing as Söder’s argument that compulsory care vaccination is no help in the omicron wave. That’s true, even if every vaccination is helpful at all times, but that was never the goal of compulsory vaccination.
It is designed, quite simply and concretely, to protect those who are most vulnerable and, at the same time, least able to protect themselves. For months, clinic patients, home residents, and those in need of care have had to endure the fact that staff comes much closer to them than most people would currently feel good about. Knowing that these staff are vaccinated is the least reassurance they are entitled to.
It is astonishing that the Union uses such weak arguments in its counter-position to facility-related compulsory vaccination, but there is well-founded criticism of the law: Unfortunately, it is very difficult to implement. Because in the understandable will to protect the nursing facilities from staff shortages, the legislator has burdened the health authorities with complex controls. These should decide in each individual case at “dutiful discretion” whether dismissing the unvaccinated force is appropriate or not.
Weren’t health authorities the authorities that just gave up contact tracing because they were completely overwhelmed by the force of the omicron wave? In fact, exactly that. From mid-March onwards, there will be a jumble of individual decisions, and without any specified criteria. The staffing situation of the institution should also be taken into account. But how exactly? So if 20 nurses in a smaller home refuse the vaccination, they have a much better chance of simply staying on the job than two employees in a larger one. Hardly a fair assessment.
Be careful when voting
So there is no need to economize on criticism of the law on facility-related compulsory vaccination, and the four weeks before it comes into force must be used to make the implementation clearer. However, in the case of the Union, you should have read the text of the law before you vote for it with almost the entire group. Then you could point out deficiencies in good time instead of explaining afterwards that you had imagined everything completely differently.
This attitude has little in common with constructive opposition work. However, this will be even more urgently needed when it comes to getting compulsory vaccination or preventing it in the next few weeks – depending on how parliament decides in the end. The CDU and CSU are urgently required to familiarize themselves with their new role with a seriousness that is appropriate for parliamentary decisions. And for residents and patients in Bavaria, one wishes that Markus Söder would make another U-turn in order to put the protection of those most at risk above transparent political calculations.