Status: 04/06/2023 10:27 a.m
Tomorrow the state-mandated mask requirement in practices and clinics will end. However, the facilities could make use of their domiciliary rights and continue to order masks, according to Kassenärzte boss Gassen.
After three years of the corona pandemic, the last nationwide corona regulations will end at Easter – and with this the state-mandated mask requirement in art practices and clinics will fall. Nevertheless, the requirements for wearing a respiratory mask in the facilities can remain in place. In each case according to the decision of the local facilities. “Of course, practices can set an additional obligation to wear a mask within the meaning of their house rules, and everyone can continue to wear a mask voluntarily,” said the head of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), Andreas Gassen, the dpa news agency.
But it is good that there will soon no longer be an automatic obligation and that the principle of personal responsibility will apply again. Corona has not been a threatening situation for many months. Against this background, it is logical that the mask requirement for patients in practices ends, says Gassen.
Gass: New phase in dealing with Covid-19
The head of the German Hospital Society (DKG), Gerald Gaß, also welcomed the end of the mask requirement in several interviews. He said that masks were still compulsory everywhere and made no sense for employees in the clinics. “You can’t expect that from the visitors either.”
According to Gass, clinics are used to defining hygiene measures to protect their patients, even independently of Corona. With the expiry of the last statutory corona measures, we are entering a new phase in dealing with this disease. According to Gass, hospitals would decide individually according to the respective situation which measures to take. This will depend, for example, on the patient clientele and certainly also depending on the area of the clinic.
Reappraisal of the Corona crisis required
With a view to the political decisions during the corona pandemic, the FDP parliamentary group had called for an inquiry commission in the Bundestag to deal with the corona crisis politically. The FDP health politician Andrew Ullmann considers this to be urgently needed. There are lessons to be learned from the past three years, and it must be discussed whether all measures really made sense and were proportionate, said the Würzburg doctor in the joint morning magazine ARD and ZDF.
In retrospect, Ullmann was critical of school closures, curfews and bans on visits to old people’s and nursing homes. Restrictions on freedom must be justified by the state, emphasized Ullmann. The fact that people died alone in nursing homes should not be repeated.