“Our team is already vaccinated,” assures a Bavarian dental practice on its website, “the entire practice team is fully vaccinated,” assures another. A third refers to a continuous triple vaccination of the entire staff and a fourth also tests “all employees regularly”. Many dentists in the Free State have long since discovered the reference to the corona vaccination as a marketing tool, and some have recently been administering such vaccinations themselves. However, there is no obligation for dentists themselves or their staff to be vaccinated, at least until mid-March. If you believe the latest vaccination statistics from a member survey of the dental associations, then there would still be a lot to do. And many patients could get scared and anxious.
Because the own vaccination quotas, with which the professional organizations of dentists argue against the institution-related vaccination obligation, do not indicate completely immunized practice teams. The Dental District Association of Upper Bavaria, for example, published these figures in its current newsletter to members for February 2022. According to this, 90 percent of all practices have announced that they would have “problems” if vaccination was introduced in mid-March. After all, 17 percent of practice owners will not be fully vaccinated themselves by March 16th. More than half of all practices employ unvaccinated or, at best, incompletely immunized employees – and in a full quarter, more than 90 percent of the entire team are not vaccinated and should no longer work from March 16th.
Dealing with the vaccination rate is difficult
It is precisely for this reason that many home operators, clinic companies and care associations, as well as the Bavarian Dental Association (KZVB) and the Bavarian State Dental Association (BLZK) are opposed to a facility-related compulsory vaccination, as is to apply throughout Germany from March 16th. Because then you will lose a significant proportion of unvaccinated employees from the already very scarce staff and you will hardly be able to fulfill your own supply mandate, according to both organizations. In the case of a general obligation to vaccinate, on the other hand, at least it does not only affect a single professional group – and the staff who are critical of vaccination can then hardly migrate to other sectors without an obligation to vaccinate.
The KZVB and the BLZK are aware of the low vaccination rates from the survey, but dealing with it is difficult. On the one hand, the chambers use the numbers themselves as an argument against the facility-related compulsory vaccination. On the other hand, however, Leo Hofmeier, for example, who is responsible for contacts with the public and politics at KZVB, does not want to give the impression that patients are possibly exposing themselves to an increased risk of infection because of the many unvaccinated people in the dental practices. On the contrary, says Hofmeier, not a single case has been documented from the entire pandemic in which a patient at the dentist became infected with corona – thanks to hygiene and the FFP2 masks, which also prevent infection in the event of vaccination breakthroughs or in asymptomatic infected people could well prevent.
Convinced opponents of vaccination are often well networked
In addition, the meager vaccination quotas in the practices are based on a self-made survey by some chamber officials among all members in the country. But of the approximately 16,000 dentists in all 8,000 practices in Bavaria, just 400 would have answered, Hofmeier calculates – and it was probably those who reported particularly badly or who were particularly angry. Due to the lack of a register, no one knows for sure how high the vaccination rate in Bavaria’s dental practices really is, and Hofmeier does not want to make any public estimates. The demand for the special vaccination appointments for dentists, which were initially organized by the chambers, was huge.
Nevertheless, the topic of vaccination also splits dentists and sometimes puts a strain on the relationship with patients, reports Hofmeier. Particularly convinced opponents of vaccination are often well networked and know exactly about their right to receive pain treatment without being allowed to ask for a vaccination or even a test. “Some actually provoke it,” says Hofmeier. At the same time, dentists have not had to provide every patient with information about their vaccination status. In the end, the right doctors and patients will probably find each other – usually without any indication of a completely unvaccinated team.